Why Laughter is the Best Medicine | Ep. 44 with Brent Fenton
We're not all perfect. More often than not, we miss the mark. Finding the right balance and making sure you're going after the right goals can be difficult. That's why it's important to surround yourself with truth tellers who will point out the blind spots and hold you accountable.
Firefighter Brent Fenton shares his struggles with handling the tragedies he faces with being a first responder to balancing being a great husband and father. His stories show that sometimes, laughter is the best medicine.
If you're having a bad day, take a moment to laugh! Check out Firefighter Fenton all over social media or on his YouTube channel.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FirefighterFenton
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/firefighterfenton/
Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@firefighterfenton
The NO GREY AREAS platform is about the power, importance, and complexity of choices. We host motivating and informative interviews with captivating guests from all walks of life about learning and growing through our good and bad choices.
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Transcript
Hey, welcome to the No Gray Areas podcast.
Speaker:Today's guest was outstanding.
Speaker:Brett Fenton was a firefighter for 19 years.
Speaker:He talks about life, some of the mistakes that he made.
Speaker:But the part that you're going to love and you're going to laugh at is fire
Speaker:fighter Fenton.
Speaker:You have to find out who that is and what that's about.
Speaker:Let's jump in.
Speaker:Brant, welcome to the No Gray Areas podcast.
Speaker:Great to have you.
Speaker:We're going to jump into kind of the background of your life here in a moment.
Speaker:But the way that I got you on this podcast.
Speaker:Is a friend of mine. He was on this last spring.
Speaker:He is a firefighter like yourself and I asked him a couple of months ago,
Speaker:I said, do you know anybody else that we could have on the podcast?
Speaker:And he said, I have the perfect guy for you.
Speaker:So he brings up this video and shows me and I needed nothing more than that.
Speaker:We're going to jump into that in a moment, get some background.
Speaker:But first of all, let's just back up a little bit and hear your story.
Speaker:So you're a firefighter.
Speaker:How long have you been a firefighter? Right.
Speaker:So I've been a firefighter for like almost 19 years.
Speaker:Okay. Yeah. And all of it here in the Phenix area. Yeah.
Speaker:My whole life has actually been here.
Speaker:Oh, you grew up here, too?
Speaker:I am born.
Speaker:And raised, and I. Know anybody was born and raised here.
Speaker:Like, that's.
Speaker:I'm like.
Speaker:I'm also, like, like fourth generation Arizona.
Speaker:Are you serious?
Speaker:Oh, yeah. So I've been here a long time.
Speaker:Part of my family actually founded Dewey in northern Arizona.
Speaker:So. Really?
Speaker:That's so interesting, because once we're from Montana originally
Speaker:and when we moved down here, it's always kind of my intro question to people
Speaker:because I found almost everybody in Phenix is a transplant.
Speaker:So I'm like, Hey, I'm Pat.
Speaker:They give me their name. And they said, Where are you from?
Speaker:Because they're almost always from somewhere else.
Speaker:Oh yeah. For generations, yeah.
Speaker:In Arizona.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We were a glutton for punishment with the heat, so.
Speaker:I guess so.
Speaker:I guess so. Well, and then you wanted a little more heat, so you.
Speaker:You become a fire? Yeah, so.
Speaker:And then you were telling me before we turned on these mikes,
Speaker:your dad was a cop then, right?
Speaker:So you kind of come from a family of first responders?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, yeah, my dad is the youngest of four brothers
Speaker:and three of those four were police officers.
Speaker:So, yeah, he did 26 years with Phenix police.
Speaker:So and it's like in first responders just in your blood then, right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, we were I was actually gung
Speaker:ho to be a cop and he was like, nah, don't do that firefighter.
Speaker:So why, why would he say that?
Speaker:So he was a Phenix Police officer for 26 years, promoted to the rank of sergeant.
Speaker:And just kind of throughout his career, he did have some unfortunate things happen
Speaker:when like two weeks after he got promoted, one of his officers was in
Speaker:1999, was ambushed, shot and killed.
Speaker:And so that that hit him real, real hard.
Speaker:And after that, I was in I was in high school
Speaker:at the time, and he was like, you know, he knew I want to be a cop now.
Speaker:Every spare time I had, I was going on ride alongs with them
Speaker:and just trying to learn as much as I could.
Speaker:And he's like, You know what? I'm not going to your funeral.
Speaker:You know, he's like, I want you to go.
Speaker:I've got some friends
Speaker:in the fire department, go on some ride alongs, went on some ride alongs,
Speaker:got to see some awesome things on those experiences and was like, okay,
Speaker:this is what I want to do.
Speaker:So I know I've always heard that
Speaker:firefighter show up and everybody wants him there.
Speaker:Yeah, cop show up. And most people don't want him there.
Speaker:They're there for something, you know, you did something wrong or something.
Speaker:And I guess that's.
Speaker:That's probably somewhat true, isn't it?
Speaker:Absolutely. Yeah. Listen, my dad said he's like, you know, be a fighter.
Speaker:Everybody loves a firefighter.
Speaker:And he's like, when they're way over you, they're using all their fingers.
Speaker:So, you know. Yeah.
Speaker:Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker:Yeah. Well, we we have.
Speaker:Great, great, great respect for all of you first responders.
Speaker:I mean, I don't care
Speaker:if you're a police officer, a firefighter, you're an emergency room doctor, nurse.
Speaker:I mean, all of you deal with stuff that the rest of us
Speaker:really don't have to deal
Speaker:with very often and are seeing things that are really tough to deal with.
Speaker:And we actually had a guest on here this last spring, Tony Rodarte.
Speaker:He was a homicide detective and he actually has a nonprofit.
Speaker:He works with first responders because a lot of them don't want to go get help.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:Over the stuff they've seen.
Speaker:And so they just said, hey, we're just going to provide
Speaker:free of cost counseling, no questions asked.
Speaker:You don't have to put your name in on it because we'll pay for it because.
Speaker:Because first responders deal and see a lot of things, right?
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker:You definitely see all aspects of life and unfortunately they're not always great.
Speaker:So yeah, yeah.
Speaker:You got to have got to have outlets and means to deal with that.
Speaker:So what are some of your outlets?
Speaker:How do you deal with it? Because you how long have you been.
Speaker:So almost 19 years. Almost.
Speaker:So you're going on 20 years? Yeah.
Speaker:So you got to deal with some stuff.
Speaker:So yeah, you know, I've seen a lot, you know,
Speaker:I've seen some very tragic and unfortunate things, you know.
Speaker:And so in the fire department culture, you know, it's kind of like a family.
Speaker:It's very much like a family.
Speaker:We spend a third of our lives in those fire stations.
Speaker:And so, you know, we we eat together, we laugh together, we cry together,
Speaker:we fight together. So, you know, like a family.
Speaker:Yeah, we rely a lot on each other.
Speaker:We talk a lot about it.
Speaker:You know, for me, I'm a Christian. I have my faith.
Speaker:So I know that it it doesn't
Speaker:just end with me, you know, I'm part of a bigger story, you know.
Speaker:And so, you know, I have my coping
Speaker:mechanism, you know, as I know that we live in a broken world.
Speaker:And, you know, it's this is a this is a product of the fall.
Speaker:And so for me, I know that I can take these things that
Speaker:that I see these tragedies and, you know, I can give them to God and I can pray.
Speaker:And and that's really helpful for me.
Speaker:Very, very helpful for me.
Speaker:It's a very, very comforting thing knowing that it's all going to be made right.
Speaker:Not this side of heaven, you know, but you know.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So but how amazing that you're part of making some things right
Speaker:like you do that
Speaker:that's what you guys do with firefighters
Speaker:are first responders are part of making things right right on this side.
Speaker:I mean, we can't make everything right, like you said. Right.
Speaker:I'm reading a book right now called You're the Body Doesn't Forget.
Speaker:I think that's the name of it.
Speaker:And it's about trauma and how our body reacts to trauma.
Speaker:And, of course, as first responders, you guys deal with a lot of trauma.
Speaker:You see a lot of trauma.
Speaker:Yeah, but but it it struck me when I just started
Speaker:reading the preface of it, the first chapter of it, that anybody
Speaker:who deals with the really dark side
Speaker:because we live in a broken world, as you said, yeah,
Speaker:you're going to carry stuff, your body's got scary stuff that Yeah.
Speaker:Just having to deal with that for sure. Mhm.
Speaker:So when I, when I.
Speaker:Just met you out in the lobby.
Speaker:I saw you and I said man I didn't recognize you without the.
Speaker:Mustache.
Speaker:So tell the audience what that means. Yeah.
Speaker:And kind of go back to this video that I referred to at the beginning.
Speaker:So there's a mustache.
Speaker:Left, so there is a mustache involved.
Speaker:You know, I've been a firefighter for almost 20 years.
Speaker:I enjoy comedy has always been a passion of mine.
Speaker:I enjoy making people laugh.
Speaker:And I'd heard my whole life, you should be a comedian
Speaker:or you should do whatever and then get on the fire department
Speaker:working with guys and be laughing and back.
Speaker:Dude, you missed your calling and you hear that so much
Speaker:and you start to question, Did I miss my calling? Yeah.
Speaker:And so like we said, as firefighters, first
Speaker:responders, we do see a lot of trauma.
Speaker:We do see a lot of things. And one
Speaker:gift, I guess, that
Speaker:we have or a thing that we can all use is a sense of humor.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And and so I've just like I said, I love comedy
Speaker:and I've been
Speaker:able to kind of figure out a way that we can laugh about the mundane things
Speaker:and the not so great things that we see in a way that we can all connect with.
Speaker:And it's just it's it's great medicine for all of us.
Speaker:And so I started this thing called firefighter Fenton. Yep.
Speaker:I follow you on Instagram. Yeah. Yeah. So.
Speaker:So in the fire service, you know, in the culture, you always see
Speaker:firefighters get the mustaches.
Speaker:And that comes from way back when when they didn't wear air packs.
Speaker:And the mustaches were literally almost like a filter to filter this.
Speaker:I didn't know that really.
Speaker:And so where I did not know.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:because I always when I go
Speaker:walk through a store or something, I see some of the big old mustache.
Speaker:I was telling my wife, I'm like, But they're a firefighter.
Speaker:Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Speaker:But there was actually a.
Speaker:Reason there was there was actually a purpose for that.
Speaker:A reason for that years and years ago.
Speaker:And and then now it's just kind of become a cultural thing.
Speaker:I unfortunately don't have the genetic makeup that allows me to grow
Speaker:an amazing mustache.
Speaker:Or the one you wear on these videos is amazing.
Speaker:So I had to find one elsewhere, and it's just kind of a character.
Speaker:We have a saying in the fire service, you know,
Speaker:when somebody has kind of been there, done that scene, it all, it's that salty dog.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so my character is, is a salty guy
Speaker:and he's he's he's just angry at the world.
Speaker:He's not true.
Speaker:I'm laughing. I got to tell the audience. You got to go.
Speaker:How do they find you again?
Speaker:So, yeah, it's firefighter Fenton and it's on
Speaker:I'm on Instagram Facebook Tik Tok it's the same same handle.
Speaker:I just I'm laughing.
Speaker:They're probably all wondering why I'm laughing
Speaker:because I've watched a bunch of your videos. Right.
Speaker:And so when you talk about just Salty Dog and the mess, I'm
Speaker:replaying right now in my mind, so.
Speaker:Okay, go on. Go on.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, you know, and
Speaker:as I've kind of gone through this journey that there's a fine line between
Speaker:just sheer madness and comedy, like when something is so I know it.
Speaker:I do a lot of writing, I just kind of do a lot of observing what's going on.
Speaker:I pay attention.
Speaker:So when I hear somebody complaining or somebody frustrated, angry,
Speaker:mad about something,
Speaker:I'll kind of,
Speaker:you know, write down notes of what's going on
Speaker:because I know there's some comedy in there.
Speaker:And then when I go back and look at it, I find that when you can
Speaker:when you're in those moments of something that's frustrating you
Speaker:or that you're seeing red blinders are up, that's all you see is your problem.
Speaker:But when you can kind of pull yourself out and get kind of like a 10,000 foot level
Speaker:and look at that, you can say like, man, in that moment, it's so frustrating.
Speaker:But when I look at it from here, it's like it's actually kind of funny.
Speaker:And then I recreate those moments and play that and make it on a video and people
Speaker:watch and go, Oh man, I've been there, I've been that guy or I know that guy.
Speaker:That's so and so. And I've seen them act that way.
Speaker:And then everybody shares it.
Speaker:They tag that person, Hey, this is you.
Speaker:And they, you know, they go back and forth.
Speaker:And so it creates a good laugh and a good really a good moment
Speaker:where guys can talk about it, whether they're on shift,
Speaker:if they're having one of those brutal shifts, they can watch the videos,
Speaker:they can talk about the videos or if it at home with their families.
Speaker:They watch the videos and their laugh and the families don't understand why
Speaker:that's funny
Speaker:and they're able to talk through that. It just kind of creates those moments
Speaker:where they can just get together and laugh.
Speaker:You know, proof. Of this is when my kids were little.
Speaker:They're all grown now.
Speaker:But there was a day in the backyard where I could not get this lawnmower started.
Speaker:And I got so angry, I.
Speaker:Like, threw the lawnmower. I had a cast in my head.
Speaker:I throw it and it, you know, it rolls over a couple of times, is leaking gas
Speaker:and oil all over the grass.
Speaker:And and I'm still, you know, breathing hard in my my middle child,
Speaker:who also thinks he's a comedian like yourself. Yeah.
Speaker:He looks at me and says, maybe it'll start now, Dad.
Speaker:Now, at the moment, that wasn't funny.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, but but later, stepping back, like you're saying,
Speaker:I mean, we as a family have laughed about that so many times.
Speaker:So you actually recreate things like that that happened in the fire station
Speaker:or happened to people. Yeah, right. So give us an example. One.
Speaker:Yeah. So, so yeah.
Speaker:I mean, comedy's all around us.
Speaker:So, you know, I like for instance, we have headsets that we were
Speaker:in the trucks. Yes.
Speaker:When you take your headset off, it pulls your hair or it does whatever.
Speaker:Yeah. And
Speaker:they,
Speaker:the headset will pull your hair and it'll hurt and you're like, oh gosh.
Speaker:And so I just and this is this a really small example.
Speaker:You look at it,
Speaker:you get that feeling of like pain or whatever, and you're like, Oh my gosh.
Speaker:And I make that video.
Speaker:And people are like, I have been that guy
Speaker:because every everybody who's worn those headsets has had that.
Speaker:I don't know what it is you so many pulls your hair doesn't hurt
Speaker:that bad just one tiny hair pulled and it is just.
Speaker:It's worse for.
Speaker:Oh yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker:So you've got that and you've got this.
Speaker:But the character, the who's playing is the Salty Dog.
Speaker:Oh, yeah. He's the salty. Guy. Big mustache. Yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, and a more I would say a better one.
Speaker:A better example would be so we get 911 calls
Speaker:my one one is for emergencies, right.
Speaker:People call 911, they say,
Speaker:please do not respond with the lights and sirens.
Speaker:Everybody's been on that call.
Speaker:They don't want to alert their neighbors.
Speaker:They're embarrassed, whatever. But, you know,
Speaker:if this is truly an emergency, you don't care how we get there.
Speaker:Just get here. Yeah.
Speaker:So everybody's been there and you're hearing that
Speaker:and we're all like, Yeah, okay.
Speaker:So I have one video where I made where
Speaker:cabin's like, Hey, the caller say it's no lights and sirens plays.
Speaker:And I'm like, Oh, he does, does he?
Speaker:And like, my character has got a mustache.
Speaker:It's it is not me.
Speaker:It's a, it's truly. A character. To go into.
Speaker:I mean. I've got to just use the.
Speaker:Yeah, I've got a different voice. I'm like, Oh, he does that.
Speaker:And then I just
Speaker:and I hit the siren, the lights and just let it rip and everybody starts
Speaker:laughing and everybody's, you know, start talking about that is so true.
Speaker:I mean, that, you know, don't go go lights and sirens or whatever.
Speaker:It's like, oh, no, we're going like the sirens.
Speaker:Yeah, if this is an emergency, we're coming the full bore. So.
Speaker:So where did this all start?
Speaker:This firefighter Fenton mustache.
Speaker:Kind of a salty guy that's been around for a while.
Speaker:When did you. First do this?
Speaker:So this started back in 2011, 2010.
Speaker:Somewhere in there.
Speaker:My department had an annual banquet and it's kind of an awards banquet
Speaker:where they
Speaker:they you know, they recognize firefighter of the year
Speaker:and different things like that service.
Speaker:We've all been to these spots,
Speaker:you're sitting on the edge of your seat with excitement.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, yeah. Or like you're.
Speaker:Your head. Is on the. Table.
Speaker:Watch when this is over.
Speaker:Your heads on the edge of the table cause you're falling asleep.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:So at these events, you know, they're all talking about.
Speaker:Yeah, like you said, it's just the years of service, all these awards,
Speaker:so they can get kind of stale, kind of boring, tiring.
Speaker:And I was just like, you know what?
Speaker:I could maybe add some comedic relief to the night.
Speaker:And so
Speaker:I decided that I was going to remake a song
Speaker:the at the time it was the Lady Antebellum song I Need You Now.
Speaker:And I rewrote the lyrics to that and was kind of highlighting
Speaker:what we call the system abuser, someone who calls 911
Speaker:all the time for non emergencies.
Speaker:And we have it was called my knee hurts now
Speaker:and it was my lyrics were it's a quarter after one
Speaker:I'm calling 911 because my knee hurts now and it's no I didn't anybody.
Speaker:That knows the song is
Speaker:they're playing the part right now when you say that, right.
Speaker:Yeah and. Yeah. And so it just goes through that.
Speaker:It's like, no, I didn't fall.
Speaker:I have no complaints at all. Just my knee hurts now.
Speaker:And of course they cannot drive themselves to the hospital.
Speaker:And it's also been hurting for months.
Speaker:But at this moment, yeah, it's, you know, a quarter after one in the morning
Speaker:and now's the time to call and nothing really changed.
Speaker:I just got sick of it. So wake up and, you know, whatever.
Speaker:But obviously we get those calls. We don't want the lights and sirens.
Speaker:Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker:So we get those calls or we're happy to run them.
Speaker:That's what we're here for. That's our job.
Speaker:But there is some monotony.
Speaker:And I think we we you know, we're human beings, too.
Speaker:And we deserve to laugh at those monotony because in those moments,
Speaker:it can be frustrating.
Speaker:And so if we can laugh about it, that's what gets you through.
Speaker:You know, you bring it up.
Speaker:It's a life lesson, really what you're talking about.
Speaker:If we can learn to step back from some of the difficult,
Speaker:dark things in life and not in the moment, you're not going to be able to.
Speaker:But if we can laugh about them later and we we often will.
Speaker:Right? Yes.
Speaker:That's your point.
Speaker:Well, that's the video that you're describing.
Speaker:That's the video with the one friend of mine.
Speaker:He's a chief now.
Speaker:And he said, check out this video.
Speaker:You're going to want this guy on.
Speaker:And I watched the video and I'm like, you are right.
Speaker:Give me his contact information.
Speaker:So and then it went from there.
Speaker:How many years ago was that?
Speaker:That was so yeah, that was ten, 11 years ago. And that one set it off.
Speaker:I literally made that video
Speaker:and I woke up the next morning and it was well on its way to a million views.
Speaker:And I was like, What just happened?
Speaker:Because this was never the plan.
Speaker:This was all by accident.
Speaker:You were just making a fun video for the for the night and to wake up a few people.
Speaker:Yeah. And I put it on YouTube for the guys that couldn't make it to the banquet.
Speaker:And everybody who was at that banquet shared it.
Speaker:And I started getting emails about subscribers.
Speaker:Subscribers. So I'm like, What is happening?
Speaker:My YouTube is blown up because before that I think my most viewed video
Speaker:was like 30 views. Yeah.
Speaker:And then I just, you know, I just kept making videos from there
Speaker:and it's kind of turned into what it is now.
Speaker:And it's it's been a great journey. Do you have a favorite?
Speaker:Well.
Speaker:My favorite is actually that one where they said no lights and sirens
Speaker:is my favorite, like short form one, my favorite
Speaker:long form, like the music video style.
Speaker:I have one. There's a couple actually.
Speaker:I have one that's called station two.
Speaker:And every department has that station where you just get hammered,
Speaker:you get no sleep, you miss all your meals, you just run in your butt off.
Speaker:So that one just the cinematically I was very artistic
Speaker:the way I filmed it and stuff like that.
Speaker:And so I just really liked how that one came across
Speaker:and then one that I just did recently about having people
Speaker:pull over to the right when, when they see our flashing lights
Speaker:and that it's just, it just doesn't happen.
Speaker:So I'm not even a first responder and it drives me crazy.
Speaker:My wife my wife is here. She'd be like nodding, right.
Speaker:Oh, you should hear him in the car.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And people don't pull over for you all when you're going to a call
Speaker:and no one's moving. Oh, that drives me crazy.
Speaker:That's what that one is about. Yeah, that one.
Speaker:And that one is to the song, the movie The Greatest Showman.
Speaker:Yeah, like the big Crescendo song. Yeah.
Speaker:The never enough song.
Speaker:Like, mine is called Never Enough in My Whole Thing Is
Speaker:all the shine of a thousand strobe lights.
Speaker:All the cars that have pulled to the right side
Speaker:will never be enough for people to see that there's a fire engine coming.
Speaker:And so so that's that's the premise on that one.
Speaker:You know, what's interesting is I've noticed with first responders
Speaker:are not just first responders, but anybody that has to deal
Speaker:with like the dark side of humanity at times difficult things.
Speaker:There's a there's a there's a dark comedy that is almost a coping mechanism.
Speaker:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker:So, you know, I was a pastor for years.
Speaker:And, you know, we'd go to a lot of like hospital calls.
Speaker:And I remember there was one hospital call we went to
Speaker:and it was the entire family were firefighters.
Speaker:Right. And their mother, she had fallen. She'd hurt her head.
Speaker:No one really knew.
Speaker:This is usually when you go to this call,
Speaker:everybody's crying and I'm praying with family.
Speaker:And but this one, we have never laughed so hard.
Speaker:We were standing outside the emergency.
Speaker:Firefighters are the sons are firefighters. And
Speaker:it was just nonstop joking.
Speaker:Yeah, but but you kind of have to do that as a coping mechanism, don't you?
Speaker:I've noticed. Same thing with military.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Like I said, comedy is it truly is a medicine and it really are
Speaker:just laughing that I should say comedy, laughter in general truly is
Speaker:it is a medicine and it really does get you through some some pretty awful things.
Speaker:But yeah, sometimes we always say, man, if,
Speaker:you know, we, if people had kind of a peek behind the curtain
Speaker:and heard some of the jokes we make at some of the worst times,
Speaker:and they probably think that we're horrible, horrible human beings.
Speaker:But it really it truly does it really helps us get through some of those very,
Speaker:very tragic things that we see because we're human beings, too.
Speaker:And that's just kind of how we process.
Speaker:That's how we process through it and how we see
Speaker:the things that are happening and and and just kind of how we how
Speaker:we get through it and just move on to that next call
Speaker:because you it's is a very unique profession.
Speaker:Being a first responder or whatever.
Speaker:You're police officer or firefighter, even in the military
Speaker:when you're there, it truly is.
Speaker:You're there.
Speaker:People are calling you at the worst moment of your life or you're having to go in
Speaker:and do some very hard things and see some very horrible things.
Speaker:And in those moments, you cannot it's it's weird to say you almost have
Speaker:to turn your human being off and you become very task oriented
Speaker:and you no longer see a child or somebody's mother or somebody.
Speaker:It's it's now a problem.
Speaker:I have the skill set to fix that problem and I'm going to do it.
Speaker:And because if you saw that as an injured
Speaker:child or, you know, somebody else, somebody could have whatever.
Speaker:Yeah, the human side would take over and you absolutely could not function.
Speaker:So you have to kind of switch your brain into this
Speaker:task oriented system process.
Speaker:There is a problem.
Speaker:I know how to fix it. I'm going to fix it and we're going to move on.
Speaker:But there is that time where you come back, where you can't stay
Speaker:task oriented or a robot.
Speaker:You have to become a human again.
Speaker:And that's the part where I think people have a hard time
Speaker:transitioning back or even just dealing with it.
Speaker:And it just it's it's different because it makes you feel
Speaker:these feelings of like, is something wrong with me?
Speaker:Because when I do experience
Speaker:death or something like that in my personal life,
Speaker:whether it's a family member or something like that, it doesn't affect me.
Speaker:Like I see other people in my family and it makes me feel like, man,
Speaker:it's something wrong with me.
Speaker:But what I've kind of figured out
Speaker:is because we do see some of these traumatic things
Speaker:and some of these really awful, horrible things.
Speaker:I'm almost thankful that when somebody dies
Speaker:of natural causes, that's how it was, because I know it can be a lot worse.
Speaker:But I've also know that it is it is at its core just part of life.
Speaker:You know, we've all we're all dying. We've all been down since birth.
Speaker:So, you know.
Speaker:My middle son and I talk about this often where.
Speaker:We're like, I don't know what it is about our culture, our society, right?
Speaker:That so many people pretend or act like they're not going to die.
Speaker:Right? Like we're all going to die of something.
Speaker:And so it's almost like we we live in a in a culture in a lot of ways
Speaker:where we almost pretend we're not going to like.
Speaker:It's such a shock when someone does.
Speaker:But, you know, going back to what you're talking about, Brant, this is why
Speaker:I and I think a lot of our listeners just have tremendous respect
Speaker:for first responders, military, all the people that deal with that is
Speaker:you are dealing with things that the rest of us
Speaker:really you know, maybe a couple of times I've come up on a couple of really
Speaker:terrible car wrecks and had to deal with some things.
Speaker:But that's that's what you guys are dealing,
Speaker:you know, week after week, month after month, year after year. Right.
Speaker:You're going on decade after decade almost.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:So, you know, great, great respect to you.
Speaker:So Brant is, you know, this podcast is built around this cautionary tale
Speaker:no gray areas
Speaker:mistake that a
Speaker:couple of guys made in their early twenties
Speaker:and now they're in their early fifties and it's still costing them.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:They've lost careers over it and so the guy that wrote the book, No
Speaker:Gray Area, is Joseph Gagliano, who this this podcast is really about or after it,
Speaker:you know, he really wants to share, Hey, I made some mistakes.
Speaker:All of us as humans make some mistakes.
Speaker:Doesn't mean the story's over, right?
Speaker:You do want it as a cautionary tale.
Speaker:You hope younger people will hear and listen
Speaker:and maybe choose a different road, but there's still a redemptive side to it.
Speaker:What are some of yours?
Speaker:You know, you're you're.
Speaker:How old are you?
Speaker:I'm 40 years. Old.
Speaker:I wouldn't ask you that if you were a woman.
Speaker:But if men, we're okay, we're safe.
Speaker:So you're 40 and 40?
Speaker:Yeah, I'd say welcome to the forties, but I just left them.
Speaker:I'm 51.
Speaker:So you're 40 years old.
Speaker:You don't get to 40 without having some bumps in the road.
Speaker:Right. So what are some of yours?
Speaker:So, yeah, you're right.
Speaker:I'm 40 years old. And in that 40 years.
Speaker:Yeah, I actually have never made any mistakes ever.
Speaker:I've been a perfect human being other than Jesus.
Speaker:But, you know, that's really. Why we wanted you on. Right?
Speaker:We've had a lot of people to share their mistakes.
Speaker:I wanted to have one person.
Speaker:To reach the mountaintop, but yeah, yeah. No.
Speaker:You know, I will say coming from a law enforcement family,
Speaker:I think I was made aware of mistakes very early,
Speaker:at a very early age of just the the fact that mistakes do carry weight.
Speaker:And it does affect you the rest of your life.
Speaker:So that's not to say I haven't made mistakes, but.
Speaker:But you were you were raised in the home where your dad, your mom.
Speaker:But your dad especially as a cop, is saying, like, hey,
Speaker:you can do some things and that doesn't go off your record, right?
Speaker:So like, I never I never did drugs.
Speaker:I never did I never tried alcohol.
Speaker:I just I just I just didn't do that mainly.
Speaker:Mainly because I had a fear that my dad, he's going to find all this out.
Speaker:But I'm still an idiot.
Speaker:I'm still with I'm 40 years old. I'm still in it.
Speaker:I still do make mistakes.
Speaker:The mistakes that I think that for me
Speaker:that have been the most impactful in my life.
Speaker:There have been the mistakes that have come in my my personal life
Speaker:as as a husband, you know, as a father, things like that.
Speaker:You know, I'm very passionate about leadership and families and marriage.
Speaker:And it's so often in the fire service,
Speaker:you see it in just in first responders in general.
Speaker:Yeah. Brokenness in families and marriages.
Speaker:And, and I have countless friends who have been divorced.
Speaker:And it's just it's truly heartbreaking.
Speaker:And I think for me and I've made mistakes through this social media journey, which,
Speaker:you know, again, that was never the plan.
Speaker:It just kind of happened.
Speaker:But so like for me, the a mistake that I would say that I made
Speaker:early on, it's, you know, we identify
Speaker:these targets in our lives or these goals and you have
Speaker:you can have things that are like,
Speaker:it's a good desire, it's a good thing, but it can be a lousy goal.
Speaker:And so, you know, I was my wife and I were married.
Speaker:We had our first son, Bentley.
Speaker:And I remember thinking, you know, I'm going to be I'm not going to be that dad
Speaker:that just is checked out.
Speaker:You know, when the baby's here,
Speaker:you know, I'm not going to just roll over and get away.
Speaker:I'm going to get up. I'm going to change those diapers.
Speaker:I'm going to be just so involved and be this great dad.
Speaker:And I got, which that's a great yeah, that's a great, like, desire.
Speaker:It's a lousy goal.
Speaker:My goal needs to continue to be
Speaker:to my first and foremost, my relationship with God, my relationship with my wife.
Speaker:And that's the thing.
Speaker:The best gift that I can give
Speaker:my kids is having a great relationship with their mother.
Speaker:And for me, I kind of got it twisted and I was like, I'm going to be a good dad.
Speaker:I'm going to be a very involved that and be all this stuff.
Speaker:And so I got so laser focused on making sure that I was doing
Speaker:all the things helping out and this and that when
Speaker:and without even realizing that I'm neglecting her like her needs,
Speaker:not asking her how she's doing, where she's at, like, are you okay?
Speaker:I see you're tired.
Speaker:Not even acknowledging like she does so much.
Speaker:You know, our wives do so much.
Speaker:Yeah, and for sure.
Speaker:And here I am thinking like, yeah, I got this figured out.
Speaker:Pam Kids, being a husband is not that hard.
Speaker:And I'm completely missing the mark, completely missing the boat.
Speaker:And then it's like smacking you in the face when she's telling me, like,
Speaker:I just, you know, I don't even feel like you even think about me.
Speaker:You're not even, you know, I feel I feel very alone.
Speaker:I'm like, what are you talking about alone?
Speaker:It's me and you in this with our kids.
Speaker:What do you mean, alone?
Speaker:And so, yeah, I mean, marriage is not easy.
Speaker:I know. I know.
Speaker:A lot of newlyweds, young married couples that are like, marriage is easy.
Speaker:And this not sure it can. It can.
Speaker:Some people, they hit it. They hit the ground running.
Speaker:And it's hard right from the get go for me and my wife.
Speaker:It was not like that.
Speaker:We it was great.
Speaker:The first, you know, four or five years of marriage
Speaker:and then kids come into it and then it gets real, you know, and and.
Speaker:There's a whole new normal you're trying to figure. Out.
Speaker:And yeah, that's an ever changing thing, you know?
Speaker:And as soon as you get figure out what normal is,
Speaker:normal becomes something different. Yep.
Speaker:You add another kid to the mix or life happens or whatever.
Speaker:And so yeah.
Speaker:And, and I still like and again, I would be lying
Speaker:if I said I've got to figure it out
Speaker:because I still miss the mark and I still got to remember that like,
Speaker:oh man, you know,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:my wife was she'll share her frustration, me and I and I get caught up in work.
Speaker:You know, you have we have careers and I have this social media thing
Speaker:and I have all these different things that have come into life.
Speaker:And I, uh, I miss the mark again.
Speaker:You know, I get, I get off focus and, and I start thinking like,
Speaker:you know, I need to work harder, get that promotion, make more money,
Speaker:be able to provide for my family more,
Speaker:you know, in social media, it's it has it has offered
Speaker:opportunities of different things.
Speaker:Money has come with it. Different things have come with that.
Speaker:And I'm like,
Speaker:you know, I just want to do this because I want to be able to
Speaker:get these resources, money or whatever, to be able to create
Speaker:experiences and memories for our families and all these things.
Speaker:But it's like if I'm focusing on that,
Speaker:yeah, well, losing my family in the meantime,
Speaker:then that's completely wrong and I'm completely off
Speaker:and I have missed that and think thankfully
Speaker:I haven't had that happen.
Speaker:You haven't lost you know, my wife and I are happily married.
Speaker:We're going to be married 13 years coming up soon.
Speaker:Congratulations. Thank you.
Speaker:And yeah, we have four kids and she is my biggest cheerleader
Speaker:throughout this all this social media stuff in my career.
Speaker:And I'm her biggest cheerleader as well.
Speaker:And but she like Brant or firefighter Fenton more.
Speaker:Oh, I mean, who's your favorite? Oh, now she.
Speaker:She doesn't like that. She doesn't she not a fan.
Speaker:She's been in some of the videos and she's a great she's a great sport.
Speaker:She enjoys being a part of the videos.
Speaker:But as they as the platform has grown, I get recognized.
Speaker:We get recognized. And she she's an introvert.
Speaker:She does not like to be out in public.
Speaker:And she's also she was an air nurse for years.
Speaker:She's not in the years right now.
Speaker:But when she was in the air and fire crews come in, they're like, you're that.
Speaker:Yeah, you're the girl from the video season.
Speaker:So thanks for that. Appreciate that. Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. So yeah, she don't want any part of that.
Speaker:So, you.
Speaker:Know and Brant though,
Speaker:but going back
Speaker:to what you were just saying, this is where every one of our listeners,
Speaker:I think, would resonate with what you're saying.
Speaker:Their lives are different.
Speaker:They may be in a different situation, but there's none of us like what you're
Speaker:what you're saying is life is just you're juggling these different things, right?
Speaker:Yeah. And none of us are going to arrive.
Speaker:That's where I like one of my favorite phrases.
Speaker:Never arriving, but always striving.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like, you're not going to wake up one day and go, I have a perfect balance in life.
Speaker:I reached the mountaintop.
Speaker:I know how to be a perfect dad, a perfect husband, a perfect firefighter.
Speaker:So what you're describing is you just saying some of your mistakes,
Speaker:some of the things you struggled with
Speaker:is just trying to find that that balance those
Speaker:and then making sure that your your goal isn't the wrong goal.
Speaker:Right. Or your. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:The biggest thing that I always
Speaker:think is like, you know, it's my job to lead my family.
Speaker:You know, I lead my family in, you know, spiritually.
Speaker:And and I always say that, like, I'm the I'm in charge
Speaker:of the fun side of our family.
Speaker:I'm the CEO of fun when it comes to that family.
Speaker:Probably the right guy for that. Yeah.
Speaker:And so like my desire is to, you know, and it's evolved, right?
Speaker:You know, I was when I, I haven't always been Brant
Speaker:who was a firefighter, whose firefighter friend
Speaker:who was married, who's had kids, who's, you know.
Speaker:And so I have all of these things now, all these different hats that I wear.
Speaker:And like you said, I'm constantly trying to find that balance
Speaker:and make sure that I'm aiming at the right mark,
Speaker:make sure that I'm leading at the right leading in the right direction, because
Speaker:I you know, especially me as a leader, as a father, as a husband, I don't get
Speaker:the luxury.
Speaker:Had taken a backseat in saying, you know, don't feel like leading the day
Speaker:like I'm always leading and you're never not leading.
Speaker:You're either leading where you want to go
Speaker:or you're leading where you don't want to go.
Speaker:And it's always readjusting and correcting that path.
Speaker:And sometimes I get off that target, I get off that mark, and I, you know, I,
Speaker:I see that flashy thing and I'm like, Oh, I'm going that way, you know?
Speaker:And then I have to realize, oh, you know, no, that's that's money.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Whatever money, whatever, it's going to come.
Speaker:It's going to go, you know, I need to go after my wife's heart
Speaker:and go after my kids heart.
Speaker:I need to, you know, I need to make sure that I maintain my relationship
Speaker:with God for myself, you know, all these things,
Speaker:because, you know, if that's not good, I can't lead anybody.
Speaker:I can't even leave myself at that point.
Speaker:So so what would you recommend?
Speaker:You know, let's say we have some listeners, myself included,
Speaker:who who would go, man, I so hear what you're saying.
Speaker:And I find myself, you know, maybe yesterday they had a conversation
Speaker:with a spouse or a friend or a coworker or a boss or someone who's explaining them.
Speaker:I think you're I don't think you have balance right now.
Speaker:I think, you know,
Speaker:how do you lead yourself through that failure
Speaker:or how do you lead yourself through that disappointment?
Speaker:Where what would you do? What would you recommend?
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, again, I it's it's
Speaker:just recognizing that we're humans, you know, we we aren't perfect.
Speaker:None of us have arrived.
Speaker:But, yeah, like, you hit it right on there.
Speaker:It's being able to have, you know, a group
Speaker:around surrounding yourself with people that can point out those blind spots.
Speaker:You know, there's you don't know what you don't know. Yeah.
Speaker:And you can have someone that
Speaker:who truly cares about you
Speaker:has your best interest in mind, who loves you, whether that's friends,
Speaker:family, a pastor, a coach, whatever that is,
Speaker:that knows you well enough to know that, hey, you're off
Speaker:and can come alongside of you and kind of help because we all, we all need
Speaker:we all need to be part of a team.
Speaker:We all need someone to come alongside us and help us.
Speaker:And it's just having that that accountability really is what it is.
Speaker:Who are those people in your life?
Speaker:So for me,
Speaker:you know, I have I have mentors.
Speaker:You know, I have I have.
Speaker:So my dad, you know, my dad is one of my biggest you know, he's he's my amazing.
Speaker:Yeah, he yeah. Exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I and I do feel very fortunate, you know, my dad was my role model
Speaker:growing up and I've still, you know, he's he's
Speaker:the OG funny fountain and I, you know, I love and he's got his shortcomings
Speaker:and I've seen his failures and I've seen, you know, I'm.
Speaker:Better than most. People. Oh, yeah.
Speaker:And and that's.
Speaker:What makes him a great mentor, though, right? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:He's always showed me that and he's seen that
Speaker:and he's he's never like failed and just kind of swept under the rug.
Speaker:He's pointed at that and said, that wasn't good.
Speaker:I missed the mark on that one, you know, and that's been great for me.
Speaker:I just did it last night with one of my sons.
Speaker:I just, you know, I, I got angry.
Speaker:I came off shift.
Speaker:I just worked, you know, a 72 hour shift.
Speaker:And not a whole lot of sleep.
Speaker:And going on had some very traumatic calls.
Speaker:It was a it was a unique shift, you know, and then I got to come home
Speaker:and I got to be dad and, you know, my wife was out, you know,
Speaker:with her friends, which that's important, too.
Speaker:And my wife needs to have her life as well.
Speaker:And I had the kids and I just snapped on him and he started crying.
Speaker:And I had to sit him down and say, look, you're not in trouble.
Speaker:And what dad did right there, that was wrong. That wasn't okay.
Speaker:You know, you forgive me, and we moved on. All right.
Speaker:There's one most powerful lessons to learn, right?
Speaker:Because you can talk about humility.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:People can hear messages about humility.
Speaker:You can read books about humility.
Speaker:But when you when you watch your own dad humble himself
Speaker:and admit to his mistakes, which is what you're saying
Speaker:you did with your son, what your dad did with you.
Speaker:Yeah, that'll do you.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:So, yeah, for me, my my father, my pastor, I have really good friends.
Speaker:I've surrounded myself with people who are aiming
Speaker:at the same mark and that are going in the same direction.
Speaker:And they've been able to hold me accountable.
Speaker:I've got those people that I call
Speaker:and I always say when like the proverbial
Speaker:house is on fire, when it's burning down, you know, when my wife and I
Speaker:are just in a bad place or struggling or fighting, I can just
Speaker:have somebody that I can sounding board that I can call and talk to.
Speaker:Again, we have a few people.
Speaker:We have those people in my life. So that's amazing.
Speaker:You know, you've probably heard this.
Speaker:You show me the five people you spend most of your time with
Speaker:and I'll show you who you're going to be in two years. Right.
Speaker:And you know, that's what you're saying. You're living out.
Speaker:And that's one of the ways that you work through.
Speaker:The messiness of life,
Speaker:the brokenness of life and the stakes of life is having those truth tellers.
Speaker:Your life is amazing.
Speaker:Yeah. Well, Brant, thanks so much.
Speaker:Let me let me ask you one more time before we jump into the true
Speaker:truths in the life, which is two truths in a lie, which is ironic.
Speaker:Yes, this is no gray areas. I'm going to ask you to lie.
Speaker:But how how do people find you again.
Speaker:So anybody can find me on social media?
Speaker:I mean, you can Google firefighter friend.
Speaker:No, I mean, your hologram, which is crazy. I'm just.
Speaker:Yeah so
Speaker:yeah you can Google firefighter fan now but the easiest way is
Speaker:if you're on Instagram, it's at firefighter Fenton,
Speaker:Facebook Tok.
Speaker:I do have a Twitter which Twitter is a political minefield, which is crazy.
Speaker:But yeah, there's some comedy in there too, which is me.
Speaker:It's firefighter vent on that because Twitter won't let me have Fenton
Speaker:Stewart and two characters too long.
Speaker:So but yeah at firefighter fan you can get all my content and the
Speaker:for the most part the platforms have most of the same content
Speaker:tiktok's a little different
Speaker:because they have some crazy guidelines that whatever yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Social media frustrations that really aren't important, but.
Speaker:It's a fun. I would encourage people to go find it.
Speaker:You'll get a good laugh out of it for sure.
Speaker:And I love that you just it just kind of accidentally happened.
Speaker:Yeah, I started doing this and that blew up in some ways,
Speaker:and then you just kept on it.
Speaker:I love it. Yeah, it really did.
Speaker:It started out on accident,
Speaker:turned into something crazy, and I've been able to get involved with other things.
Speaker:I mean, I got the shirt on fire department coffee.
Speaker:That's a company I'm involved with as well.
Speaker:And I saw great. Sides.
Speaker:Good coffee.
Speaker:Great coffee. Yeah. Okay. So you had to say that.
Speaker:I know that, but I love coffee. I'm going to go try it.
Speaker:I'm going to go try it. I love coffee.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So to truth, in a way.
Speaker:So the audience myself, we've been with you for about 40 minutes or so.
Speaker:We'll see if you can stump us two truths and a lie.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I speak fluent German.
Speaker:I have Tourette syndrome.
Speaker:Um, and I have a song that was in a movie.
Speaker:Oh, man. Okay.
Speaker:Fluent German threat syndrome.
Speaker:We have a song in the movie.
Speaker:I'm going to say the the fluent German.
Speaker:I, I must say that's true.
Speaker:That's true.
Speaker:That's not true.
Speaker:Oh, you are a great life now you got me.
Speaker:So yeah.
Speaker:So I do I do know that the salty I was picturing
Speaker:the mustache and the salty guy going German sometime, but.
Speaker:No, yeah.
Speaker:No. Yeah. The song.
Speaker:That's actually how my wife and I met was doing music together.
Speaker:We led worship at our church for years and yeah, I've written some original songs
Speaker:and I had an original song that I wrote that was in a movie.
Speaker:So you writing these parody songs?
Speaker:I mean, it's it's actually something you had done.
Speaker:You're. Yeah, you. Didn't just put them up. That's another one of my passions.
Speaker:Is, is music nice?
Speaker:Okay, so that one's true.
Speaker:And then and then I have Tourette syndrome, which I was I figured I'm like,
Speaker:you got to get someone because who's going to lie about that?
Speaker:That's my son.
Speaker:Well, I haven't. I have a friend that has it.
Speaker:I haven't seen any weird, like, courts or anything, so.
Speaker:Yeah, no. Yeah.
Speaker:That was just something that I was diagnosed with when I was younger.
Speaker:And I've been very fortunate because some people don't always have
Speaker:the same path on that, that I have some people it stays the same.
Speaker:It gets worse for me. As I got older, it got better.
Speaker:So it's almost unrecognizable.
Speaker:But I do have like a head twitch that comes out
Speaker:if I'm extremely stressed or if I'm very tired.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah, my friend of mine is when he's tired. Yeah.
Speaker:Well, Brant, thanks so much, man.
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:First of all, we had fun and I encourage people to go check.
Speaker:Out your social media pages and appreciate what you taught us.
Speaker:I think all of us, if we take to heart what you said, we're going to be better
Speaker:people for it. So thank you. Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
Speaker:I really appreciate it.
Speaker:Hey, thanks so much for listening to the No Gray Areas podcast.
Speaker:Brant did an amazing job today.
Speaker:Remember the big takeaway never arriving, always striving
Speaker:and question for you who are the truth tellers in your life?
Speaker:Maybe tag some of those people below.
Speaker:Share this podcast with them like follow and subscribe.
