Brotherhood & Resilience: Navigating Career Transitions & Parenthood w/ Jared Hinsenkamp

Join us on this captivating episode of Unturned Stones as we reconnect with my long-time friend, Jared Hinsenkamp. Our journey together started in seventh grade and blossomed through our shared passion for wrestling. Jared opens up about his upbringing in Milwaukee, detailing his family dynamics with his firefighter father, teacher's aide mother, and his relationships with his three brothers and one sister. He shares the unique challenges and bonds formed as the youngest sibling and reflects on how their relationship evolved over time.

We explore Jared's career transitions, from a high-stress role in the Street Crimes Unit of the Milwaukee Police Department to becoming a Milwaukee Firefighter. Jared provides an honest look at the toll late shifts and dangerous assignments took on his personal life, especially as a new father. We also touch on his initial aspirations to become a civil engineer, his college experience, and the turns that led him to public service. Through candid discussions, Jared highlights the importance of making informed career choices and the impact of those decisions on family and personal well-being.

From nostalgic childhood memories to the trials and triumphs of parenting, our conversation is a compelling mix of personal anecdotes and profound reflections. Jared's journey underscores the value of supportive relationships and the powerful role of brotherhood, particularly in fields where trust and camaraderie are vital for mental well-being. Whether you're interested in career transitions, the impact of physical activity on emotional health, or the intricacies of co-parenting, this episode promises a thought-provoking and emotionally engaging experience. Join us for an intimate look at how shared experiences can foster growth, resilience, and emotional maturity in the face of life's relentless challenges.

Transcript

00:12 - John (Host)
Hello and welcome to another episode of Unturned Stones. On today's podcast, I'm going to be interviewing Jared Hindenkamp. Jared's actually a very long-time friend. I've known you since middle school and 7th grade. Yeah, 7th grade, yeah, our relationship really developed through wrestling. A very longtime friend, I've known you since middle school and seventh grade. Our relationship really developed through wrestling. We had a lot of fun long, terrible slash fun weekends of tournaments and practices, but that's really where our friendship developed. 

00:41
We kept it a little bit post high school and unfortunately, life got busy. Yeah, life happens, we weren't able to keep up a ton. But you're somebody who I know. I feel like you've had an interesting life story. You've been through a lot and I've never like really sat down and actually asked you a lot more about your life and you know the experiences you've had. So I was very excited that you were down to like do this interview, actually ask you a lot more about your life? 

01:02
And, uh, you know the experiences you've had, so I was very excited that you're down to like do this interview so I can actually like ask you, ask you more, because I feel like I, you know, I've known your family pretty well. I know you know your older brother and your dad would all the years of wrestling how much they would. You know we wrestled with your brother because he was obviously around when we were in high school and then your dad would always come around to practices. He'd come around to me and stuff and I wrestled with your dad a ton because he was the only big guy that I could wrestle with. So I felt very close to your family through most of high school and stuff like that. So it'll be fun for me to get to ask him these questions and dig into it a little more. So just to start out and tell people a little bit about your childhood, like where you're from, and a little bit about your family, how many brothers you have, stuff like that Sure. 

01:48 - Jared (Guest)
I grew up, born in Milwaukee, actually born in St Joe's Hospital, I'm barely over there. Dad was a Milwaukee firefighter, mom was a teacher's aide for Milwaukee Public Schools. So I had to live in Milwaukee during that time period. I had to, I think. I went to MPS kindergarten and then did some Catholic school until sixth grade and then seventh grade went to Greendale that's when we met Graduated from there, did a year of college, dropped out and went into my job, which was police aide cop, now fireman. 

02:32 - John (Host)
Okay, okay, so childhood-like life for you. Growing up in Milwaukee, you had three brothers, three brothers, one sister, one sister. Your oldest brother is how much older than you? Eight years, eight years, and then it's Eight, seven, three, three, okay, and then your sister is younger. 

02:54 - Jared (Guest)
She's seven years older than me. Oh, she's seven. Okay, yes, josh is 40 years old, so he's eight years older than me. Jamie is 39. Jake would be 36 and I just turned 33, in june okay, okay. 

03:12 - John (Host)
So the youngest kid. Um how, how was it for you being the youngest in the family? 

03:19 - Jared (Guest)
I mean it's hard to say you don't, you don like. Comparatively, I guess, when I look at my son now being the oldest, I think I was probably treated a little bit differently, but I didn't have the biggest relationship with my oldest siblings, jamie and Josh, being eight years older, that's pretty wide range. 

03:44 - John (Host)
Yeah, Josh being eight years older. 

03:45 - Jared (Guest)
That's pretty wide range, yeah. And then Jake, who's got three years on me, I think we varied as things went on. So early in life I was the trickle down. My two oldest siblings would bully Jake and then Jake would bully me Like I would just get whatever he got. Bully Jake, and then Jake would bully me Like I would just get whatever he got. And then as we got older, kind of did our own separate paths. Like even when we were in high school he was a senior when we were freshmen, so when he was on the wrestling team, it's not like we got along. I remember driving to school with him driving the old Ford Ranger and we'd play music and sing and rap and do whatever on the way to school and kind of built a relationship there. But it wasn't until after high school, actually, when I was like 19, when you were around partying and stuff. That's when Jake and I really built a connection and we're close to this day because of that, I think. 

04:44 - John (Host)
Okay, when you were younger, I mean, was there like a resentment of like kind of getting bullied by him or like no, was he still kind of always like it's still like your big brother, you still like have like the love of he's still my big brother? 

04:57 - Jared (Guest)
yeah, and again, that's it's. It's hard to go back that far and remember that at that point, but uh, yeah, he's always been my big brother. I've always looked up to him all of my siblings for the most part, you know. 

05:10 - John (Host)
And now, like you come from a very physical family where you guys did a lot, you guys did martial arts a lot, you guys did like gymnastics too right, like a little bit of no. 

05:21 - Jared (Guest)
So my dad was a gymnast in high school Okay, and he kind of I don't know. I had a natural attitude to it and he taught me how to do a back handspring and I could do backflips and stuff by age five. Jake's okay at it and Josh and Jamie don't do it at all. My dad was a professional kickboxer and we would kickbox since I was. You know, I've always always done it, never like at a gym, until way later in life. But we had mats in our basement, we had big 16-ounce boxing gloves. I remember specifically my brother and sister, jamie and Josh, being so close in age. They'd argue and they want to fight. He's like, hey, okay, put these 16 ounce gloves on, battle it out. And you know they're smaller, they're just tuckered out after. Yeah. 

06:15
I don't want to do this anymore. No, you want to fight. You guys fight and they're not going to hurt, but they're getting tuckered out. Yeah, yeah, but they're getting tuckered out. Yeah, yeah, always wrestling in the living room. Josh, jake, myself, my dad, my sister would even get into it. My mom hated it, you know, but that was always in the living room. We were always wrestling around. It was very physical. 

06:36 - John (Host)
Yeah, would you say that was like a big way you guys connected with your dad? Oh for sure, like that's how he he expresses love to you guys is through doing the things he loved with you guys and teaching you those things and yeah, yeah and yeah, okay. So then, how, like, how would you say you guys connected with your mom because you, like, you, know what are the things you guys did that your mom really enjoyed doing? 

06:59 - Jared (Guest)
uh, I don't know. I don't think we connected on the same type of level. I love my mom. She's my mother. My dad, you know, was a firefighter. He'd work 24-hour shifts, 48-hour shifts, so dad would be gone a lot but, as you saw, when we were in high school he was around for a lot of the things you know. He would come to practices all the time. He'd come to the meets. He'd make time for us. But, like, if I think back to it now, I think back to my mom being there when I was a kid. I also remember him being there as a kid. My memory as a kid was not it's not all there, you know. So, yeah, relationship's good with mom. Um, I don't think she had many activities that she did with us on a basic level, if that makes sense. 

07:50 - John (Host)
Yeah, yeah, like dad was the one that did stuff with the kids. Mom, kind of like your mom, was the support she was always, I'm sure, there, obviously, yeah, okay. 

07:59 - Jared (Guest)
She was a teacher's aide, so she worked Like when I was in grade school elementary school I went to Whittier, which is where my mom was a teacher. So I remember a very young age, my mom always being there. If I was bad, they would send me to her in the office, which is probably why I didn't go there for very long. Ok, OK. 

08:22 - John (Host)
Did you like have like a different relationship with your parents than your siblings? Being the youngest, did you notice a difference in their relationships? I can't notice it. 

08:30 - Jared (Guest)
Okay. 

08:30 - John (Host)
Or like memory, Like you don't have, like memories of things that you notice. 

08:34 - Jared (Guest)
Okay, Not specific things, no, and we're all such a close-knit family now it's like you can't even tell yeah, yeah, yeah, where we all still hang out. We just did a Milwaukee Fire family camp out. It's my 33rd year going. It's the 55th year that we've done it. We actually ran it, we being myself, jake and Jeff, because we're all Milwaukee firefighters. Yo, jamie is also a Milwaukee firefighter. 

09:04
Oh, I don't know if I actually realized that. Okay, yeah, so my dad was a Milwaukee firefighter. We all did the camp out and my parents were there Josh, jake, jamie, myself, all of our families McGinnis's because McGinnis's are my cousins, dustin, who you know, his dad was also also Milwaukee firefighter, so we've grown up in the fire department, our entire lives. 

09:31 - John (Host)
That is like really such a beautiful thing. Yeah, and like the older I'm God and the more I like realize how much I like go back to my, especially recently with the fact that I have a kid coming in September of how much my brain is I know that, congratulations yeah, okay, I don't know. 

09:44
Yeah, so I have a kid coming in September of how much my brain is. They know that. Congratulations, yeah, okay, I don't know. 

09:47
Yeah, so I have a kid coming in September and with that, like, how much I've like started to like lean into, like wanted to be closer to my family, be closer to my dad, be closer to my mom and stuff like that. Because, uh, me, my parents, just like we I see them every like couple weeks and every couple weeks we like to do like a Sunday dinner with them every once in a while. We don't do a ton of close stuff together, not because we're not close. Our family has never been overly actively done stuff. Now that I'm older, I see the importance of that when I hear that that really is a beautiful thing, that you guys are really all so close and so connected, because it's really easy to see how families do drift away when kids move away and they do different jobs. It's cool, then, how much you guys have this legacy within the fire department that you guys are all keeping and being a part of. 

10:36 - Jared (Guest)
Yeah, my generation is the fourth generation in the Milwaukee Fire Department. I'm the tenth firefighter out of Milwaukee. 

10:45 - John (Host)
Is there hope your son then will be a firefighter. 

10:48 - Jared (Guest)
I'm not going to push him to it. It wasn't like an idea of mine to begin with. It just kind of happens and it turns out it's in our blood. It takes a certain guy to have that kind of job. I mean, and you know, I just became a firefighter. 

11:03 - John (Host)
Yeah, yeah, you know I, I just became a firefighter, yeah, yeah and uh, because prior to that you're a cop. 

11:10 - Jared (Guest)
For how many years, I guess, then that was uh, police aid for two and then a cop for 10, so 12 years on milwaukee police department okay and were you in the same district the entire time or did you like transfer within districts? 

11:20
no, I started as a police aide at Communications, which is at District 3 on 49th and North. Moved to the Academy for a few months which is on Titonia, 6680 North Titonia, so out there by like Good Hope Road, and then got moved to District 2 to do booking as a police aide. So this is still 1920, early 21. District 2 to do booking as a police aide so this is still 1920, early 21. District 2 is on Lincoln, yep, okay, yeah, down on the east side there. And then Police Academy, which is six months long, graduated. 

12:00
That Went to District 5 on 4th and Locust, 53206 area code, big one, if you know. Moved to Street Crimes, which is a specialty unit dealing with. What they had us doing back then was they'd take an entire group of officers, the TEU, which is the Tactical Enforcement Unit, swat team, motorcycles, street crimes and it was Chief Flynn's idea at the time was all high crime areas. So the busiest I don't want to say worst, but the worst areas in Milwaukee he would just flood cops in that area in an attempt to disperse any sort of active crime. That would be We'd make as many stops as possible, traffic stops. I was on a bike a lot during that time like a bicycle with six other people and ride around, kind of just a presence thing, right, yeah? So I did that for four years. Kind of just a presence thing, right, yeah. So I did that for four years. Went to District 1 after Morales disbanded the Street Crimes Unit and then I was on TU for the last three years of my career. So the SWAT team. 

13:14 - John (Host)
Okay, so then what made? 

13:21 - Jared (Guest)
you make the switch then to go to Firefighter fire. 

13:23
Well, I had a. I had a son at 21 in the police academy. Uh, as you know, with a woman that I knew for about two weeks. Um, didn't talk to her for an entire month and got a phone call saying that she was pregnant. It's mine, probably. Mine Went back to the Academy, cried and roll call like, but I didn't. I didn't see him. It being a cop and having a kid is Is tough. 

14:03
So and granted, I was late shifts and midnight to 8, a lot of the time, 7 pm to 3 am, a lot of the time. When my son was first born it was 7 pm to 3 am. My kid's mom went back to work right away because we needed to at the time, and she would get up for work at 6, leave for work by 7. I would get home from work about 3.30, 4 am if I didn't have overtime, and then leave to go to work at 5.45. So I would try to get there an hour early. So that gave me about two hours a day of sleep because I'd come home 3 30, go to bed by four, she'd wake up for work by six, sleep by seven, so about three hours, and then she wouldn't come back home from work until four-ish, 4.30 probably, and I would leave for work at 5.45. So that was a tough time during that. And then when I was on late shift midnight to eight, I had to pick up my son from daycare at 4 pm. No matter what, I get off work at 8 am, try to sleep the entire time, but if I had overtime which is a lot District 5 is the busiest district so I get overtime, maybe till noon, and then take a nap and go. So I felt like when I was home, even with him big dicks, you know I uh sleep deprived. I specifically remember locking us in his room, me laying down and him playing and like playing all around me, and that's not what I wanted for him at all. 

16:00
If I talk to my kid's mom now who we have a icy relationship, rocky relationship, right she tells people well, you just weren't there. I'm like, well, I was working. Well, you weren't there, though that's hard, right, I was supporting the family. She stopped working for a time and then she became a real estate agent where she wasn't making money for a time. I was doing the things and to come back and so that was hard for me. So that was a long story for a short answer. I now met my wife in 2018, I took it was always. We'll circle back a little bit, so it was never the plan to be a cop, right, I went to college mostly for pole vaulting, but to be a civil engineer, that was Platteville, platteville, yes, platteville, okay, yes, and that clearly didn't work out. 

17:08 - John (Host)
Can you talk about that more? Yeah, absolutely. What happened with that freshman year and why didn't it work out for you? 

17:15 - Jared (Guest)
It's not that it didn't work out right. I had a 2.0 average in college, which I could use a multitude of things as excuses. That's when the swine flu was a 2.0 average in college. Um, which can I could use multitude of things as excuses. That's when the swine flu was a thing a1n1 or whatever it was. I caught it twice in college. 

17:33
So I was like I'd written for a week, two weeks at, or a week at a time, twice, um, and I. I really wanted to get all of the general classes done with, like the classes that don't go towards anything. I had my idea to be a civil engineer on the basis that I liked engineering In general. Our high school had a civil engineering architecture class that I loved. It wasn't necessarily best at, but I loved it. It was fun, especially using the CAD program, going through designing things. That was cool. 

18:09
I don't think I necessarily knew at the time that civil engineering and architecture are not the same thing, you know, yeah. So I wanted to do more of the architecture side of it, but I'm not an artist, which helps you know. So I went into civil engineering because it was the highest paid engineering at the time. I'm like I don't want to be a failure in life. That was my idea, took only general classes. I took 18 credits the first semester and I think, 16 the second semester, on top of doing track, and it just wasn't for me. I've heard you talk about it on the podcast before and, yeah, I drank, I partied, I did the things you necessarily didn't want to do in college, and then track was what I wanted to do. So the only reason I kept the 2.0 average is because you had to have at least a 2.0 average to be on the track team. So it was tough. And then I kind of sat down with my dad after first semester and he's like, well, you know, he wasn't paying for college. I was paying for college. I didn't take loans out, so maybe this isn't for you. 

19:32
They have a police aid test coming out the city. Why don't you become a firefighter like us? There's no fire test right now. Get your foot in the door with the city and try out this police aid thing. 

19:53
I, kind of half-assed, took the test. I didn't even put in my uh, um, whatever paperwork says that you live in the city, you get extra points didn't even, didn't even put it in um, switched my my major to criminal justice after that, which actually gave me a little more interest because, taking the classes, I was like, oh, this is actually a little more interesting than I For, like the second semester, yeah, for the second semester, okay, a little more interested in it, because that wasn't even a thought in my life, you know ever. And then ended up somehow getting hired for the process, which is crazy because they take 30 police aides at the time and this is 2010 is when I started and I was ranked 147, which means that people had to fail background tests and deny it and do other things to not get picked. For me to get picked, so it's weird. 

20:49 - John (Host)
Yeah, yeah, like I guess you're saying that's a lot of people from 147 it gets down to the 30 so things kind of just fell in place like all right, that's maybe. 

20:58 - Jared (Guest)
Maybe it's meant to be in college. 

21:00 - John (Host)
I'm assuming was it, it was your like you were, you accepted the idea to want to go to college. It's not like your parents didn't push you to go to college or did they like, suggest for you to go to college. 

21:11 - Jared (Guest)
No, they never did. But you remember, we graduated the same year. That was a societal acceptable thing. Oh yeah, yeah, that's what you did Very much, pushed on us. 

21:19 - John (Host)
Greendale was proud of having us college ready out of high school, yeah. Okay. So for you it was just kind of the pressure of society of this is the next step. Yeah, that's the next step. That's what you do. Okay, so, and it's good for you that you didn't but track two. 

21:34 - Jared (Guest)
I I wanted the pole vault. 

21:36 - John (Host)
Yeah, okay. 

21:48 - Jared (Guest)
So then you also had the athletic pursuit with it as actually a big thing. So that was. So I got um scoped out by a couple schools whitewater, um, I don't remember once, but platteville and platteville was the only one that had engineering. That scoped me out. So that is the main basis of me going to platteville was the coach already had been talking to me about going there to pole vault and then they had engineering sort of program and the athletic program and the yeah academic programs lined up. 

22:09 - John (Host)
Yeah, um, but again, it's good for you that you made this decision early enough and that you didn't go through like two, three, four years of college and then decided I didn't want to do this degree or this is not, for you know. Yeah, like you decided it early enough, which is a thing that a lot of people don't do. A lot of people do go through a lot more college and then never use that degree and never do anything with it. A hundred percent. 

22:31 - Jared (Guest)
I think the main thing for me was dude, I don't want to be in debt starting 18, which I don't think that should be paid for, and no man, you're signing a paper saying that you're going into debt and at an early age I was like I don't want debt at 18. Maybe I should start my actual life. 

22:59 - John (Host)
Also a lot of kids that if you go to a local college UWM, platteville, whitewater, oshkosh, any of these local colleges the tuition is really not that bad and the debt, honestly, after four years isn't that bad, as long as you don't take a ton of loans out for extra stuff. 

23:13 - Jared (Guest)
$6,000 a semester, yeah. 

23:17 - John (Host)
Compared to people that are wanting to go to Marquette, msoe, or then they want to go out-of-state college and then they're paying out-of-state tuition and then they also want their debt excused. The people are going like $200,000, $300,000 in debt. That's crazy yeah, because they're never going to pay it back. That's why they want to excuse. 

23:34 - Jared (Guest)
Well, and here's the thing too, so, like police officers, if you do do a four-year criminal justice degree which, if anyone's listening that wants to be a police officer, don't ever do that. That's the most useless degree you could ever have to become a police officer. Now, if you want to go federal routes, yeah, it's cool, they do a tuition reimbursement. If you work for a municipal, they do that for lawyers as well you get your law degree. You can work for the municipal. They do that for lawyers as well you get your law degree. You can work for the municipal. You can work as a assistant district attorney or as a defense attorney working for the public public defender. After 10 years I believe it's 10 years they have a tuition reimbursement type deal. So there are ways to to get it paid for. But you have to actually help society. 

24:33 - John (Host)
You know a lot of the times you commit to something for long term too. 

24:37 - Jared (Guest)
Yes, yeah, yeah, it's very true. Which military was also going to be a plan too, because, again, my back, my head. Uh, I still wanted to do college. Right, it was still my plan to go part-time because Milwaukee police have $1,200 a year towards tuition they reap reimbursement. So the plan was I'll just do school. While I'm doing that, do something else. So if I didn't get the police aid job, the plan was to go into the military, get the GI Bill pay for college. The plan was always college until I realized. That's why you know. 

25:18 - John (Host)
Okay, okay. So then at that point, police aid and like that put you down that route with the slight idea that getting your foot in with the city will make it easier to get into the fire department eventually if you wanted to. Yes, so there was always in the back of your mind, once you went this route, that having a foot in the city is going to ultimately let you get into firefighting, if that's what you determined after being in the department, however long, and so the 10-year span that you did it could have been shorter, could have been longer or Couldn't have been shorter, okay. 

25:51 - Jared (Guest)
So they had a test for Milwaukee Fire Department in 2008. We were 17. I was 17. You can't take the test until you're 18. And then they have what's called a cadet program, which is like the police aid program. It's kind of an internship-type deal. You get paid. 

26:10
They didn't have that during the time period that I would have been able to do it. They got rid of it. My brother, josh, my oldest brother he was a cadet and then I don't remember the year they got rid of it for a long time, until 2012, when I turned 21 and you have to be between 17 and 19, or 17 to 20 years old to do it. 19 to 21. Yeah, 19, whatever, whatever it is 17 to 20, I think, is the ages. So I couldn't even do it anymore. So I couldn't be a cadet, couldn't apply for the fire department. 2008 is when my brother, jake, applied. They didn't have another test until 2017. So I took that test. So seven years on the police department until I could take a test. I didn't do so well. I got placed 319 or something like that. I was on the list for what was it? Five years. So in 2022, I decided to make the switch to go to the fire department and that's when you, like your turn, was next up on the list. 

27:30 - John (Host)
Yeah, okay, okay, cool, okay. So then at that point it's that they reached out to you and said you're next up, you're on the list, the offer is there and you're able to take it. Yep, okay. And then I'm assuming your wife supported this and wanted it as well. 

27:44 - Jared (Guest)
Yeah, because we, we thought that would be better for the kids. Okay, you know, I, I started a new family and my wife and 18 married 20. I have two kids now, so third on the way at the end of august as well. That's wonderful, yeah, um well, I'm sorry. Four kids, two kids with her, third on the way with her. My son also is with us most of the time. 

28:10 - John (Host)
Okay, um, and before we get into her, I do want to like backtrack, because I want to then like yeah we're all over the place and timelines like yeah yeah, because, um, what I'd like to then like get into is what it was like for you more on the finding out that you had a kid coming being 21. That was terrible, yeah, I mean, I imagine it was very hard for you. It probably felt like you were about to lose freedom. It felt like you know things that you just you weren't anticipating or prepared for at that time, not even a little bit. Yeah, so like, can you talk more about that? 

28:45 - Jared (Guest)
Yeah, I mean, I was a 21-year-old full of piss and vinegar, best shape in my life, on top of the world, getting into a good career where I was going to have money and be able to do whatever I wanted to right. And then my world ended for a little while until I realized it's a great thing. I was a cocky little fucker coming out of the police academy, coming into the police academy and I think having a kid was probably the best thing for me in life. It hurt me a lot. Best thing for me in life. It hurt me a lot Now having a kid with somebody that you don't know and being forced into living with them because she didn't have insurance at the time. And Wisconsin had the domestic partnership clause back then, which was a way to get around gay marriage. You can. Gay couples can live together and have the same tax benefits or similar tax benefits, so you guys were able to employ that without having to legally get married. 

29:54
Yes we took advantage of that so she could get on my insurance and we never got married and I didn't plan on getting married. We were together for my son. It was very clear early on. We were together for my son. It was very clear early on. We were together for my son. In fact, we started living together. We weren't even dating. And then it was very hard because you have a woman with your child living at home. We had to share a bedroom because we could only afford a two-bedroom duplex at at the time and my other room was for my son, so shared a bedroom. 

30:30
I try to go out with friends while she's pregnant. Come back, would you talk any girls? Oh, maybe, like you know what, if, if we were dating, would you not be like this? Like if I said it was just you always, would things change? So we did that, dated, still never saw eye to eye, still never saw eye to eye on our parenting styles, which we honestly still don't. But we make things work, probably better than most co-parents, I would think, and my wife is a saint with that as well. My kid's mom and I butt heads pretty good. My wife is the middleman which she hates. I know she hates it. She's a fucking saint. But so yeah, going back, it wasn't easy, man, I don't know. First five years of his life again, I wasn't there a lot Butting heads with mom trying to go through couples therapy. Knew it wasn't working. 

31:34 - John (Host)
If she had her own insurance, would you guys have moved in? I don't think so. 

31:37 - Jared (Guest)
Okay, and then you think I kind of got forced into it by my mom and my sister at the time Like you need to do this. 

31:43 - John (Host)
Because she needs the insurance. Yes, she needs to, okay. Yes, but otherwise, if you guys, if she had her own insurance, you guys didn't have to live together, would the whole situation have been more bearable? I think so, okay. 

31:54 - Jared (Guest)
Yeah. 

31:54 - John (Host)
Because you guys, your concern wasn't that the kid woke up every day and saw mommy and daddy right there? 

32:09 - Jared (Guest)
It was that she. All that matters. To have him be an acceptable member of society is all. I think every parent should want their kids to be right, like a productive member, to give something back to not only the community but to the world. That's what I want my son to be and my daughters, and that's really all that mattered. So the first five years were kind of like we're trying to force two same magnets together and we're getting pushed apart, right? So after we finally broke up, we had a financial issue. That was actually the best thing that ever happened. It split us up. I had to sell my house. I got $30,000 in debt. I pretty much sold my house, wrote a check for $30,000 to all the credit cards and all the things and cleared it up. So I literally started a new page, a new life Zero debt, single. Have my son moves in with my cousin. She was separate, could take care of herself. Now she was separate, she became very successful with her real estate. She actually owns her own real estate. I don't want to say business. 

33:29 - John (Host)
Yeah, it's like a sub-business within the real estate. 

33:31 - Jared (Guest)
Yeah and very successful with that. She's actually doing her own podcast and stuff now. Um, so yeah, we're two separate people sharing a and both living life, you know. So it's super cool when I or my wife need help, hey, we're going to be out of town. Are you going to be in town to take Logan? That's my son's name? Yeah, absolutely. She'll call and say, hey, I have to show a house. You guys around? 

34:05
Yeah absolutely Like we never went to court, there's no child support. I have to show a house you guys around yeah, absolutely, we never went to court, there's no child support, there's nothing like that. We work together to make it work. That's why I say I think we're the best co-parenting that I've seen in the world of split families, at least Like we're a team, we work together to make things work. And again, we butt heads a lot, but we make it work really well. 

34:34 - John (Host)
Yeah, like you, keep it cordial and, at the end of the day, everybody's amicable about everything. Yes, yeah, yes. 

34:40 - Jared (Guest)
Hey, he's got a doctor's bill, we're splitting it, stuff like that, like that's everything's split down the middle, and if it can't be split down the middle, the other side takes charge and takes over it and there's no ill will at all. 

34:58 - John (Host)
Do you, you know, seeing Logan's childhood and him growing up, compared to like your kids now with your wife like, do you notice a difference in like how they grew up because of like the parents being together as opposed to not being together? For sure, but. 

35:13 - Jared (Guest)
I don't think it's a difference of parents being together as parents being apart as much as my son's mom and I have completely different parenting styles, where my wife and I are on the same page for a lot of things. My wife and I are not big on screen time at all. I bought a house out in Franksville with 12 acres of land, 8 acres of woods. We're outside all day, every day, playing. My son likes to play video games and be on his phone, which he has a phone, because my son's mom bought him a phone. I'm super against it, but I understand why he needs a phone to communicate, especially he's 11. Now he's doing things. 

35:59
So that's the only part that I find difficult. It's like we just don't share the same thoughts on how parenting should work, which is fine, but it early on it was tough. It was like I felt like I need to fix everything that she's doing, but what she's doing isn't wrong. You know, it's just different. Yeah, so now we're trying to get in the middle point, like we just went camping and he had his phone up there and we're like and it's a big campground, so hey, go, go play, just bring your phone. Stay off your phone, bring your phone. No game Like you're with your, your cousins, go, go be a kid Go go play, have fun. 

36:50 - John (Host)
So, and does he? Will he then go play with his cousins and go have fun, or does he kind of have a hard time. 

36:53 - Jared (Guest)
Yeah, but like I you know, sometimes I I would call him and he'd answer at half a ring and I'm like I was you know I was ready. 

37:00 - John (Host)
Yeah, yeah, yeah so, yeah, I can imagine that's hard hard because you do. You feel like you want to make them follow the way of life that you kind of prefer 100% of the time, but you can't control them 100% of the time and, like you said, it's not like what their moms do is bad, it's just different. It's a different way of looking at you know how you want to raise kids, and I think back to when we were kids. 

37:25 - Jared (Guest)
I don't know if you had the same experience growing up, but like I fucking loved video games. I would play video games as much as possible. But I also played outside, yes, so so much like a ridiculous amount of time drinking from the the garden hose, like because you had to, you know, because you're exhausted, playing football in the street, like doing all the Milwaukee things you could do. But, to be fair, I had what? Six other kids my age group in in my block and we had all like shared backyards. We'd all meet up in the middle. He's got two or three, but where we live, for some reason or another, like like it's not the same. 

38:08
I remember the first couple of weeks being there. He's like hey, can I go ride my bike? I'm like, dude, go ride your bike, we'll see your other kids around. Go, go play. Yeah, awesome. And uh, he would go, he'd go to their houses. 

38:19
And then, like a month later we got text messages hey, can you let us know when you're sitting, know when your kid's going to come knocking on our door? I answered in my role, like why would I do that? He's a kid, yeah, does he care? And then he was looking in one of their windows to see if they were home and they were like what is he doing? I'm like at first I was like, yeah, that's weird. And then I think back to when I was a kid. I'm like I did the same thing. You knock on the door, nobody's answering. Where are they? Where are you guys? Yeah, yeah, like here we just kid. So I don't know if it's because I'm not in Milwaukee, I'm not in that city dynamic anymore and it's more a very rural farm area. Yeah, rural, that it's a different dynamic. I don't know. But I think he's getting gypped a little bit on that. 

39:18 - John (Host)
Like one of the things we really love about the little neighborhood we live in in Greenfield is we live in this little pocket, we live on a cul-de-sac and there's this little park right at the end of the cul-de-sac. 

39:29
We always just got like kids running around the street and it's like I love that. 

39:31
I love just seeing kids being outside playing, because it means they're not on their phone, it means they're not inside on tablets or looking at screens, but they're outside like actively doing stuff, riding their bikes. So like I love I love seeing that and like I I hope my kids someday are good about being out. Cause when you express like I want to, my our hope is that our next house to buy in the next couple of years is going to be one with a lot of acres, a big backyard, a big wooded lot, so that way we could basically, like you said, spend all day outside with the kids, cause I that's the way I want my kids to grow up is be outside, play outside, get dirty, be off the screens, because I do think that's so important for kids to like explore the physical world, because it builds confidence in them as they get older to be, like you know, able to explore the real world, as you know the cities and you know stuff like that. 

40:20 - Jared (Guest)
It builds friendship too. Yeah, to have that Lifelong friends are going to be your neighborhood friends. You know that didn't really happen in my life, I guess, but we all went our separate ways. It's Milwaukee. 

40:33 - John (Host)
Yeah, people split up. 

40:33 - Jared (Guest)
People went down much different paths, you know. But my last house that I had was also in Greenfield. It's like 96 and Brookdale, okay. That is like right off of Layton. 

40:46
Yeah yeah, right by Root River Park. Uh, it's like 96 in brookdale. Okay, that is like right off of layton. Yeah, yeah, root river park, yep, or over there, that's what he had. We we also had a dead end street over there. We lived right on the corner. Our house was like the hub for all the kids. We had a trampoline. I'd have like eight kids on my trampoline at one time. I was like please don't get hurt. 

41:01 - John (Host)
I was gonna say or do not tell your shirt. Yeah, exactly that. 

41:06 - Jared (Guest)
That was way back when. 

41:07 - John (Host)
Yeah, yeah, doesn't happen anymore, Definitely doesn't happen anymore. 

41:12 - Jared (Guest)
But I was like this is awesome. So when we went and looked at the house we saw all these other kids and these playgrounds and everything. We were like, dude, it's going to be the same, except for he's going to have eight acres of woods. Build forts, do his stuff. Like when I was a kid, little Milwaukee, they had a very small amount of woods that was next to the train tracks for like a sound barrier. Myself, my cousin, dustin and Brandon both of them we would go, we'd play in there all day, every day. Build forts, built little trails with my buddy, who was good with PMX and motocross and stuff, built ramps and stuff, and I'd have my Rhino mountain bike and going up the ramps and stuff broke my bike every year. 

42:00
Doing that Like that was my childhood and I want so bad to make him me and I understand he's not me and I think that's the hardest part at being a parent. It's like, dude, we have eight acres of woods, go build a fort. Well, can you do it with me? Sure, yeah, sure. And I did it one time, one time ever, with him. I built a fort. He did nothing Like he was just twirling his thumbs, literally didn't even play in the woods. It was just like he was just sitting there. I'm building a fort, I'm like no man, I don't know that stuff. You can tell he just doesn't want to be there. I know I'm really bad at trying to force him to do things like that. 

42:55 - John (Host)
It's something I need to work on and I have been working on as a dad for sure. I mean it's hard because you really want them to. If there's parts of your childhood that you really look back on fondly, you want them to have those same memories to look back on fondly. Think of the times they built forts, the times they built hills out of dirt so they could jump their bikes over stuff, because it's just exciting. That's what kids do. Yeah, yeah, I remember we used to have in the woods we had a bunch of kids made a nice little loop with a bunch of dirt and rocks so we'd do a bunch of jumps all around this little loop in the woods, just in the middle of the woods, bunch of kids doing some yard work, basically. 

43:33 - Jared (Guest)
Very much. Yeah, Dude, my cousins and I used to go in dumpster diving for wood pretty much Just like a random lumber of people tearing down stuff in their house. 

43:44
Bring it there, find some nails and steal a hammer from from our dads and go and makes the jankiest of forts. That like. I remember one fort we made was, uh, like we grabbed the lumber, did all that and we had all of them stacked up on one piece of like here here, here here. So if that one spot broke, like the entire thing would go, just take back to it and I was like oh man, yeah, god, that being a kid, yeah. 

44:17 - John (Host)
So like sometimes I forget, like random memories will come back at things I just did as a kid. Yeah, some sketchy things too. 

44:24
You're like, wow, sketchy things too you're like wow, I have your life yeah, sure, there is things that really push the limit, um, but okay, so, yeah, yeah, that's. I can see that you, like, really would want to push that in your kids, and it's hard, but do you feel like with your kids now, with your wife, like uh that have grown up on the property and like the ones that spend more time outside, is it's easier to probably get them outside, but they're also younger? 

44:48 - Jared (Guest)
yeah, they're one and two yeah, they're okay. Yeah, so like one and two, and they're really not really at the age you're seeing them. 

44:53
Yeah, we'll see. I can't make any determination. Yeah, um, I actually I want to keep talking bad about my son. The hardest part is, uh, the athletics, like what we talked about earlier. For for me it was. We were constantly doing stuff with my dad. We did the kickboxing, we would wrestle, we would do all these things. I played soccer a lot. He would come to practice, he would. He did the same thing like what he did in high school with us. He would come to practice and do it right, like he did that with all the sports that I ever did. My son has zero interest in any athletics whatsoever and he doesn't have the aptitude for it. When I try to do things, I try to go outside. I have a basement full of wrestling mats and boxing stuff and pretty much a full gym down there. Zero, interest, zero, and that it's hard I would struggle with that. 

45:51 - John (Host)
I would for sure struggle with that if my kid had zero interest in one of my biggest things, which is sports and athletics. Yeah, yeah, that'd be hard. They are their own kid and he's gonna have his own things he's gonna excel at. That's different. But initially it's hard because it is a big thing for you that it's been such a big part of your life being so active, so fit, being into doing anything that involves pushing your body and pushing your limits, yeah, and to see them not like want to take to that. It's hard because, yeah, you, you see an importance of it, of like physical health and also the mental health side of it that it really plays in 100. Yeah, so like for you would you say, uh, growing up like movement and being physical was a way that you kind of always like dealt with emotion I don't know about growing up, I, I I kind of just always did it. 

46:46 - Jared (Guest)
So I don't, I can't, I can't tell you, I don't think I was a super emotional kid when it came to that stuff. Like, yeah, I had outbursts, for sure, I kicked out of my house a few times as as a kid, like, but I say now, for sure, for sure I battled any sort of depression, anxiety or anything like that with working out in the bag, doing, doing whatever okay not that I have a super amount now, a pretty comfortable place in life, but like you feel like you've gotten to like a level of maturity for yourself that is feels like peaceful and sustainable. 

47:26
Like you yeah, yeah, I'll still have my second outburst of a yelling fit or something like that, but it's not after that's done and I think my wife actually hates this. It's like after we just had an argument like hey, babe, do you want to go do this? It's like, no, I don't want to do that. Why? Because I'm mad at you. Oh, you're still mad. That was 30 seconds ago, so you found a way to come back to center very quick. 

47:52 - John (Host)
Yeah, I think so, were you think in the past you weren't as good at coming back to center. 

47:58 - Jared (Guest)
Yeah, for sure, and I think a lot of that has to do with not just sports but the type of sports wrestling. 

48:08
I remember both of us during wrestling, losing matches, punching lockers, losing it, losing it right, I would cry after losing it, dude, absolutely losing it. Yes, I think you have to experience that as a younger adult or as a child to be able to zero in Having the job I did. Yeah, you can't really lose it. That being the police officer, right, you kind of got to maintain a pretty good emotional balance when people are screaming in your face or when people are coming at you with a knife or have a gun that you're wrestling with, which has all happened. You know, and obviously you can see around the world what happens when you don't have that emotional balance or that fortitude to be able to act quickly or act responsibly and be afraid on something that you should have trained for and be afraid on something that you should have trained for. Yeah, and again, with that job, the wrestling, the jiu-jitsu, the kickboxing, all of that stuff helped with that job and if you're going to be a cop, you should have all of that. 

49:22 - John (Host)
Yeah for sure. So I'm glad you mentioned something back there, which is the post-wrestling matches, losing it. I think one thing me and you connected on a lot in high school is I had an issue with my emotional variability. I can be so high and I would get so low. I could be on top of the world and feel so great and then I would freaking, get down down, I'd be pressing down, and I know that was something me and you related on because we experienced it in wrestling. We'd experience it down to highs of wrestling. We'd experience it in the lows, where we had very low lows whenever we'd lose, especially very like big matches or impactful matches and stuff like that, and that was something for me, like that I've had to like really work on maturing out of. 

50:06 - Jared (Guest)
But you found out early that it's something you need to work on. 

50:11 - John (Host)
Yeah, it was maybe irrelevant a little bit within the context of wrestling matches and being on a team, because, yeah, whatever, but it would come out of relationships. The highs and lows would come out of relationships. It would come out of other parts of life. So, for you, how was that maturity with having, like, learn how to control those highs and lows? Because I don't, you know, I don't know what that was like for you post high school time, like that? How did you dealt with that? And then you, you went through I, I believe what I I believe a level of maturity that most people need to go through time I went through in like two years yeah well, no, the have. 

50:46
Well, becoming a father, becoming responsible for something outside of yourself. I think the level of maturity that takes to do people like 16-year-olds are capable of it. 21-year-olds Most people don't hit it at that age. Nowadays People aren't hitting it at 21, let alone hitting it when they weren't expecting it because they weren't in their high school. Sweetheart married at 21, finally decided to have kids, like in a situation for you where you weren't planning on it, but you went through. 

51:13
I think the biggest maturity that people can go through is to have to deal and be responsible for something outside yourself where, no matter what you want to do, no matter what you want to say, you have to constantly be responsible for this thing, and I think that forces a level of maturity in people that nobody expects. And you have to go through it young. So like, how was that for you? At the same time as like you having that, that trait that I had, which is like the ability to go so high and low and then deal with all the stress that came on, and then the kid I I don't. 

51:45 - Jared (Guest)
It's hard to go back and think of how it worked out. I remember very specifically, um, my son's mom, being pregnant, going to christmas like my side of the family's christmas and I was going to introduce her to my family right, she's bearing my child, and like last minute she said I'm not going and introduce her to my family, right, she's bearing my child. And like last minute she said I'm not going. And I did have my outburst. I punched the fridge very hard and it freaked her out. I think that was a turning point for me, was like this was a normal thing, that I've always done Punch walls, I have an outburst and then I'm good. I always had that. Like I do it and then I'm good, right, yep. But to see her scared, like that was like and I was like it's not a big deal, I hit the fridge, whatever. That brought on a little maturity. Just that one specific moment of you know one I have I'm gonna be having a kid. Am I gonna scare my kid if I do that? Like I, I didn't like it. 

53:02
So internally, doing things or just taking it away from my family, I think was a big marker of it. So even the outbursts, which I didn't think were a big deal at the time. I'd go in the garage gym in the garage at the time and I'd go lift or I'd go hit the bag or do stuff like that. And I think as time went on, as my frontal lobe matured and I matured as a person, I had to do that less and less and less. It was more of a okay, I can't do this around my family, I can't have an outburst, and now I don't need to go into the garage to hit something. I know I can't do it here, but I want to stay here and not just walk away from an argument or walk away from my kids or anything like that. And I don't know if that's the very specific evolution of how that happened, but I feel like that that was a big, big part of it. Does that make sense? 

54:09 - John (Host)
yeah, I I've experienced something similar where, like in front of my wife in our earlier in our marriage, I would have outbursts and in the outburst I would want to punch something. And there's a point where it's like I like had you know, two holes in my house, like one in the door, one in a wall, and you're like, man, this is this is just like what am I doing First of all, I got to patch this. 

54:31
I got to fix this and like it's this isn't like it's it and obviously reflecting and being like I can't believe I did that in front of my wife. It's like it's not something she needs to see. It's not something like it's not a behavior. I need to be acting out who I want to be. Yeah, and like let alone if I don't want my kid to sometimes see that like in someday in the future, see me act like this and then do it themselves because they saw their dad do it, you know, or something like that too. So like, yeah, it was just like a stark realization of like that is not the way to deal with that anger. Yeah, I have to like breathe it out instead, or I have to like I have to like resolve it mentally instead of physically because, yeah, that feels like the easiest way, but it just comes with guilt and like regret right after. Yeah. 

55:12 - Jared (Guest)
And I think a big thing with that is realizing like it's not. Most things are not world-ending or life-changing or even going to change your day or your week. If something does change your day, it's not going to change your week, right, like you had plans. Those plans are over now. Big whoop, yeah, you know, get over it. I personally think. 

55:36 - John (Host)
And then it's especially because most of the time it's something that truly will you be upset about this in a year? No, no, Nope. In a week maybe, but realistically no, but a year you're definitely not. 

55:47 - Jared (Guest)
Is it something you can change? No, don't be mad about it. That too. 

55:53 - John (Host)
Do you feel like, through managing any of those flows, did you ever have to fight depression? Where depression was there and weighing you down on a daily basis, making it hard to do things, making it hard to have any kind of positive outlook? 

56:07 - Jared (Guest)
No, no, no, and you know that's hard to say. Again, I had depression a lot as a kid, I think, but I grew up with ADHD. Parents put me on medication. I think it ruined my chemical balance within my brain. It was just the wrong kind of medication. I have ADHD. Now I'm back on medication after not being on it for 10 or so years on Adderall and I fucking love it. You know, I feel focused, I feel like I could do things and my entire cop career. I was never on it and I actually went back to school for to get my EMT and went back on it for that and kind of just stayed on it. 

56:53 - John (Host)
Okay. 

56:54 - Jared (Guest)
So I think I had a chemical imbalance as a kid, maybe high school even into for a lot of the part. I can blame any specific thing I want to. I guess I don't know what the actual reason was, but I was more angry, more depressed, never really had a deal with anxiety. But again, I count that back to wrestling and high adrenaline activities that I did my entire life. That's all. Anxiety is right, it's an adrenaline. It's your brain's way of dealing with things. In animals. Anxiety is only adrenaline. It only works when you're being chased by a predator, something like that. With us we have a high stress issue where you should be hunting or getting hunted, for these same cortisol levels to be rising, but you're just sitting in a chair worrying about something that doesn't need to be worried about. 

57:57 - John (Host)
And some people do, because I mean, like they say, you know, like the difference between having that anxiety is whether or not you look at that as like nervous energy or excitement energy. Yeah, and if you look at it as excitement energy, then you it's literally just a reframe in your mind. You're like, yeah, I'm just feeling my body just giving me some excitement, instead of like fuck, I'm nervous and this feeling is hard like and shitty, so it really is just a reframe one thing that I even recall doing as uh in the police academy was trying to control my adrenaline before a lift. 

58:31 - Jared (Guest)
You psych yourself up, you're giving yourself that adrenaline boost so that you can get a good lift. You were a power lifter, you, yep, you know you do this balance so you get that's all. 

58:40
To up your, your adrenaline, to get you jacked up, blood flow, flow, everything that you would do again in the animal kingdom to hunt. You're now going for the hunt. You'd spike everything up to do it. But I would also work on I actually talked to my brother about this recently because he's a firefighter as well. Going in high stress situations is being mentally aware that it's happening, being aware that you can feel the anxiety coming on or the stress hormones or everything like that, and then going everything's, I'm in control, everything's going to be okay, because at the end of the day it's in your head, right, yeah, so getting shot at as a cop happened one time actually, where a guy pulled out a gun. I saw the gun, took cover, heard shots being in fires. It doesn't get to me, I have a job to do. It doesn't get to me, I have a job to do. 

59:49
I think with wrestling, kickboxing, jiu-jitsu, all of that kind of stuff, adrenaline's cool right. In wrestling, adrenaline's super cool. You get tired real quick. So I always thought bring the adrenaline down, think more on what you're doing. You have a job to do. Type deal. I think that has just gone with me throughout life. So I feel something going on. 

01:00:17 - John (Host)
Be aware that it's happening, change it. So you find that nowadays you have a lot more control of not letting that adrenaline get too high, so that you're not wearing yourself out by just being in a very high strong state. Instead, you find that you're controlling that adrenaline from surging. You feel it come up, you gain awareness and then you use just that awareness in the moment to remain calm. 

01:00:40 - Jared (Guest)
Take some breaths, calm yourself down. 

01:00:42 - John (Host)
It's always going to be there. 

01:00:43 - Jared (Guest)
It's always, you can feel it still, but you can definitely control it. Lower your heart rate, breathe in exercises. 

01:00:51 - John (Host)
Is this something that, like, they will ask you, or like, have you trained for as a firefighter? No, Because it seems like it would be a very crucial skill for all firefighters to have to be able to calm themselves with their breath, Because obviously that's like a meditation in a sense, you know because do you play, play with, do you practice or do any meditation at all? 

01:01:13
uh, not in the like formal sense of it. Okay, I suppose, but like that, you know, that's what that sounds like to me. You know the idea that you're you're stopping, you're using breath to gain awareness and through that awareness you can control your body from spiking and getting into a very high like sympathetic state. You can say in a more parasympathetic state and, um, so we're just like how this is something that you've developed just over the years. 

01:01:35 - Jared (Guest)
It's, it's not I think I had it pretty early on. Okay, I I honestly, I think being on the uh adhd medication with this like methamphetamine, right, like I was always at a very high state as it was, so I would have to bring myself down for for a lot of things. I don't know, but I think wrestling was was probably the start of it. I think wrestling was probably the start of it. Like, I don't need to have my fight or flight going on right now. How about you just think about how you can get out of this position instead of trying to muscle through or doing whatever you know? Yeah, I think jiu-jitsu is actually better for that, because it's slower. You can actually work on getting out of things. Hey, he's got me in this. What do I have to do in this position to get out of what I need to do? I think that's pretty big. 

01:02:42 - John (Host)
Yeah, it forces you to kind of stop and pause, otherwise you're just like you're rolling too fast. If you're rolling too fast, you're not really thinking, you're just instinctually kind of moving. It gets real sloppy, so you're kind of forced to have to, like, take a breath, otherwise you're not going to accomplish much. Yeah, yeah, and you have the ability to kind of slow down because you're not worried about being on your back and getting pinned. Yeah, worried about being on your back and getting pinned. Yeah, that helps. Yeah, wrestling's a little fucking sporadic. 

01:03:11 - Jared (Guest)
You have to go. 

01:03:14 - John (Host)
Okay, so now tell me about meeting your wife. How old were you when you guys met? 

01:03:20 - Jared (Guest)
I was 26. She was 22. 

01:03:22 - John (Host)
Okay, so now it's been seven years then with her. 

01:03:30 - Jared (Guest)
Six, you're 33. 2018, we met. Yeah, whatever Math. Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm cop, not a firefighter. 

01:03:40 - John (Host)
So then, um, tell me more about that. Like you guys meeting and, uh, it seemed like, like, was she, like, did you like, was she the girl? Like you knew right away with her, sure, so, Tinder. 

01:03:55 - Jared (Guest)
Okay, yeah, um, I went into it as a single dad, right, I went back into the world as a single dad. I I wanted a wife. I played around, pretty much, fucked out and found out. You know, around and found out, didn't go the way I wanted it to. It didn't choose my mate. Uh, I wanted to choose someone. I wanted to have a wife. Um, however way I could I like the right person, obviously, uh, so, yeah, met my wife. She had just graduated, became a nurse. She was a nurse at st's. At the time she was living downtown in the modern on a third and uh, juneau over there that big high rise that sound there, so literally downtown. 

01:04:43
I was a cop downtown at the time at district one, um, which is hard actually, but we were talking. After about a month of talking I was like, hey, you want to be exclusive? She said no. She's like no, I'm not actually looking for a real relationship right now. I plan on doing two years of nursing and then I want to travel, nurse and I want to go around the country and end up down south and meet a cowboy. You know, it's like okay, and I tried. I liked her a lot right away. I felt a connection. She had this bubbly attitude that I just loved being around her. I still do love being around her, you know. 

01:05:34
So I didn't want to get attached, if that makes sense, because my first try at a relationship after breaking up with my ex was I got attached real quick and I got ghosted, which never had happened before in my life and I was like you want to feel depression or anxiety? Then Like holy shit, dude, I was down, yeah, I can imagine. I was like and I and I felt like a, uh, like a class three clinger dude, like I've never been like that. But I thought, oh, clinger dude, like I've never been like that. But I thought, oh, this is gonna be the one, right, and then clearly was not. So I'm like I'm never doing that again. She doesn't want to be relationship cool, I still like her, I like hanging out with her, but, uh, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go be single dude. Um, so I did. I didn't get super attached at first and I'm like I knew I loved this girl, right, like after a couple months, maybe less, and uh, but I was like I'm not getting fucking attached. So I would see other other girls during the time still talking to her like, hey, you want to be exclusive? No, no, I don't want to. 

01:06:55
And then we, literally we hung out at somebody's birthday party, I don't know, something like that. Or the day before my cousin's birthday party, we were hanging out laying on the couch. She's like you treat all your girlfriends like this. I'm like I don't know, are you my girlfriend? She's like, uh, yeah, I guess I am. And then the next day we said I love you. Like that's like you know, we both tried to. Not well, I was trying to get her, but she was trying to push away. And then we fell in love. And then we she pretty much moved in. Right then she was still paying rent at her place, but all of her stuff was by me. 

01:07:46
And then when I bought a house which I feel like I don't remember the actual timeline, I feel like it was like within six months she moved in with me. She was still paying rent, but like she was living with me, right, I rebuilt the house pretty much, I flipped it, but while living in it and she was there the entire time. So yeah, and then I tried to ask her to marry me within probably eight months. And then she found out that I was gonna ask her because we were gonna go to Mexico for her birthday and we were talking I already bought a ring, talked to her best friend like what kind of ring? Blah, blah, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then we had like a just a random conversation. I was working downtown, she, she came by, we had lunch at the park when I was working and she's like, yeah, you know, I'm just not ready to have a ring on my finger, and like I don't remember what the rest of the conversation was. Those are the only words I heard. 

01:08:54 - John (Host)
Yeah, yeah, you're like zoning on that. 

01:08:56 - Jared (Guest)
So then I was this. I was acting weird. We were like laying in bed or something and I was just acting weird and, uh, somehow talking about that kind of stuff. I'm like you really don't want to, you're not ready for that. No, I don't think we're ready for that. And I'm like, oh, I was just staring at the fan. She was talking to me. She's like what? It's not like you were going to propose. I just looked at her like that, looked away. She's like oh God. I was like what pole is? I just looked at her like that, looked away. She's like, oh god, it's like what. 

01:09:37
I would have said yes, like I, that's not the kind, that's not what I meant. Like I didn't think we were ready financially. Like blah, blah, blah, you know years. Now she says after she's like I didn't know you had already bought a ring. Like we were flipping this house. I was saying we're not ready financially to plan a wedding, to do, but do all that stuff, all that jazz? Yeah, so I uh I made her sweat for a while because I already had the ring. I'm like, well, I'm not proposing you in mexico now. Like maybe I'll propose in three years, who knows? Like I ended up uh writing her a song, playing it in the guitar during the most random time, like a terrible time. My son was like singing some other song. In the other room my dog was barking at a squirrel and I'm embarrassingly singing this song that I wrote for her and then get on one knee and she's like wait now. 

01:10:26 - John (Host)
I'm like yeah, so yeah, and the rest is history. That's great. So now you guys have two kids, one and a two year old, and a third on the way together Together and then my 11 year old yeah, who she is mom to. And now you said two daughters, and then is it one on the way, another daughter, a third daughter. Alright, how is being a dad to do two daughters after being a dad to a little boy? I? 

01:10:55 - Jared (Guest)
don't know, I fucking love it I mean, I, imagine I obviously I want another son, like so they're all in the same age group and my wife's genetics and with my wife being just us raising them and stuff like that. But I mean I, I can't, I I'm sad when I find out and then when I know them, it's awesome. I love my girls so much. Yeah, yeah, I can imagine yeah, um. 

01:11:26 - John (Host)
Does your wife like pregnancy? 

01:11:27 - Jared (Guest)
No, no, okay, she hates it. I mean she like this time. At least this is the worst one, for sure, okay, yeah, sure, back is killing her constantly. She's nauseous all the time. Yeah. 

01:11:44 - John (Host)
Yeah, my wife's not loved that process too much? 

01:11:46 - Jared (Guest)
No, I'm sure. 

01:11:47 - John (Host)
No, no, but we don't have to go through that, right? No, we just support, just supportive. Just that's all I can do be supportive. Um, but so with, uh, with your wife and marrying her and taking on a responsibility, where you finally felt like you, you had somebody in your life that you, a partner you wanted to be with. And how? How was that changed for you? Mentally? Like, did you feel like there was? Was there any sense of that changed for you? Mentally? Like, did you feel like there was? Was there any sense of like settling for you? Like, like, set it, like your mind settling down in any sense? Like that, like you're, finally you're off the table, you're not single anymore and now you have somebody that you are invested in, spending, and fully invested in spending the rest of your life with, as opposed to just any type of transient relationships that might've happened, the ones that, like you, weren't ever too sure about. You had your, you had your lady right now, and how has that changed for you? I? 

01:12:38 - Jared (Guest)
don't know that's right. I love life. I don't I don't know how to explain. I was only technically single for like four months before I met her. Yeah, like that's, that whole timeframe happened that quick. I was so ready to be not with my kid's mom and if she ever watches this I'm sorry, but she knows we, we weren't meant to be right. So when we split up, I think I downloaded Tinder that day, like I, mentally I was not in that relationship for a long time. I remember thinking I was so unhappy. I remember thinking I'm just going to be that dad that comes home from work, grabs a bourbon, goes in the basement and does my own thing and and that's it like, yeah, I'll hang out with my kid, but if I'm never going to get married, but if my significant other was there, like we're gonna have two separate lives. I and I was content on that because at the time I was scared of what the split was going to be. I was scared of just again. 

01:13:51
I was 21 when we, when it happened, I was paying my brother $400 in rent a check, that's the only adulting I ever did. Right, she was 26 at the time, 27, whatever it was, and she had her own apartment, she was paying bills, she's doing all this stuff. I didn't even know how to do that stuff, so she took over all of it, which ended up being why things happened, went into that debt and that's whatever. All taken care of now. Yeah, all taken care of now. Which also forced me to grow up. That that's whatever, but all taken care of now. Yeah, I'll take care of now. Um, which also forced me to grow up. In a day, like you're, you're on your own. Now again, it's the best thing that ever happened to me. 

01:14:45 - John (Host)
So, yeah, yeah, I like for me, like being married and just like being with a woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. So it calmed down my brain a lot. Yeah, I don't know if, like you were, like you know, I get this feeling. We're similar in a sense that for me, especially post high school, I was always like I was bouncing girl to girl. I was always like I didn't, I didn't want to be alone. I was always trying to hook up with girls or date girls Instead of just accepting being like I don't need to be dating somebody or with any girl. I could just take some time to myself. 

01:15:20
I was bad about that and there's something about the way my brain just bounced between that so much that it never let me truly just stop and focus on myself. Let me truly just stop and focus on myself and I feel like the growth I've had while having such a supportive woman in my life who also fills that hole of my companionship, my lover, somebody who I could rely on, it's amazing, the growth I felt, like a maturity that I've gone through just because of that, just because she's there and she's a rock in my life now and I'm not bouncing around looking between relationships trying to find something to fulfill me anymore. I have to figure out ways to fulfill myself, because that aspect of my life was filled now and the aspect that I thought I was trying to fill was something else that I was having issues with. Let me figure out other issues I wasn't dealing with. Did you find there was anything like that for you? Yeah, 100%. 

01:16:09 - Jared (Guest)
I feel so comfortable in life just with my wife and my kids and it's hard now because she's working full time. She's a nurse at the VA now and I work 24-hour shifts and then come home she works a 12-hour shift, so we're not doing childcare, we're just on a rotating schedule so we don't get to spend a whole lot of time together. It's more just about the kids and making sure that they're they're good, so that that makes it a lot harder. Like and again, we didn't have the what you guys have right now, which you won't have anymore for a while. 

01:16:51 - John (Host)
Yes. 

01:16:52 - Jared (Guest)
But like the relationship that you had, like, how long have you guys been together? Since 2017. So similar timeframe, right, but I had a son during that timeframe, so she immediately got put into this parent position and we never really had a hey, let's go travel, let's go explore, explore, let's go do this stuff for sure, so that you guys instantly went into a relationship where there was this, a responsibility outside of just a relationship. 

01:17:23 - John (Host)
Yeah, yeah, you guys couldn't just truly savor in the relationship and that that is hard. 

01:17:27 - Jared (Guest)
You're right, we savored relationship for sure yeah, but if we would have had more time, as it's just that we hard. You're right, we save a relationship for sure, yeah, but if we would have had more time, is it's just that we started a family right away too, I mean their first kid, like right after getting married? 

01:17:39 - John (Host)
so yeah, so you guys kind of went right into building family mode, yeah, which you know isn't wrong, because, like part of me like there's part of me is like you know, you get your family started sooner and those kids sooner, and then they get older, sooner they get to hit those ages where you're at the right age and they're at the right age and you guys can start to become friends and have fun with them, instead of being older and they start hitting it. 

01:18:02
That wouldn't change right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Different ways to skin a cat where, no matter what, you're still gonna have kids that you're gonna love and you're gonna spend a lot more time with your wife, where the kids aren't there as well. Like you know, we have a whole life that someday, when your kids are moved out, that you just get to spend time alone with your wife and like do whatever the hell you want, cause life is that much more settled once you're all in school. It'll be a lot better. Yeah, um, so like sitting in this place for you now, where you feel this peace in life, like how do you think, like 18 year old or 16 year old, 15 year old jared would like see, like see your life. 

01:18:42
Like do you wish you could go back and tell that jared everything's gonna be okay? Or like you know anything like that? Like do you feel like that, jared? Because, like you know, I I knew there were some of the times like I saw you struggle, I saw you through through some of the depression moments. For you, I feel like in high school, where you know like it was, you'd be down, it'd be like you. It would seem like I could really get you and I I would. I didn't talk to you super closely during those times because I wasn't I wasn't, like you know, we weren't as good about, yeah, talking about mental health back in the day to be like, hey, man, you're really down, do you want to talk about it? How does that feel for you to reflect on that? Do you ever reflect on that? 

01:19:16 - Jared (Guest)
I don't really that much. I probably should. But again, like we talked about earlier, that's not my mindset. The mindset is none of that was controlled, it's nothing I can change. The life happened the way it happened and all I can really do is look at the present and the future. I like to take things one step at a time. I'm at such a like things could always be better, right financially and stuff like that. But I'm at such a comfortable position now where fuck? I've been in the city pension for 15 years. Now I can retire at 52. As a cop it would have been 44. That's one of the things would have been maybe better. But this is also better because it keeps me in the city for 33 years as opposed to that. So instead of a 62 and a half percent pension, I'd be getting at least an 85 percent pension. My wife is in the VA federal system, so like we're comfortable, like everything is pretty much just going the way it should be going. 

01:20:28
I love my job now. I loved my job before Clear. I loved being a SWAT cop. Like full-time tack was awesome, loved it. If I could have done that 24 hours on, 48 hours off, like this schedule, I would have stayed in a second. 

01:20:45
But now I'm on the fire department. I'm working at an awesome firehouse on a special unit, the hurt team, which is which is like I've learned so much more outside work skills being a firefighter on the hurt team and in the two years I've been a firefighter than the entire time in a cop. Like I learned how to be a cop. You know I I can shoot really well. I can do a lot of cool tactics room clearing I'm pretty good at, that's all. I learned how to do some some skills with tools and stuff just because you had to use them for specific things on there. But like now through the HERD team, we have technical rope training, so tying knots, rappelling, doing all that kind of stuff. I've built things in my backyard just from 550-cord swings and just random stuff just from that skill. 

01:21:50
The structural collapse those skills. I had my garage start collapsing on me from the heavy snow last year and I jacked it up and built a system. So now it's good Like building a treehouse right now. Those are skills I just didn't have. So I think that also has just changed things. Knowledge, it's from that kind of like. Those are skills I just didn't have and now it's, so I think that also has just changed things. That being said, both my brothers are in the same firehouse as me, on the herd team. So Jake is a Lieutenant and Josh has 20 years on and he's been there for 12 or eight or whatever, 10. So, and as we said before, I've always looked up to them as my older brothers, as my older siblings, and now I look up to them as my senior firefighter and my boss, pretty much. So super cool dynamic. We don't work the same shift because there's not rules, but it's like, in a sense, they don't want all family members working on the same rig, because if you all die then it's worse on the mom. 

01:22:55
Like that's like the thought of it, like, oh, if one of them dies it's cool, but if all of them were to? 

01:23:00 - John (Host)
die. You know that's not the news. They want to deliver. Yeah, yeah. 

01:23:04 - Jared (Guest)
So I think that's it's built my family life a lot more being on the fire department for sure. And the brotherhood that there's, your literal brothers that you have and my sister just at a different firehouse and a cousin, the rest of the guys in the firehouse. 

01:23:19 - John (Host)
I'm sure you're very close. Yeah, 100%, you guys are very close to that brotherhood. 

01:23:24 - Jared (Guest)
We live with each other one third of the time. 

01:23:26 - John (Host)
Yeah, so you guys know each other. You guys spend a lot of time with each other and I think you know so many. When it comes to like. This entire podcast is about men's mental health. Yeah, and it's funny because I feel like you could basically solve just about 90 of men's mental health problems in the world including, you know, issues with men killing themselves and like the suicide, like the high suicide rate in men if more men were like situations where they're just around, like men more often, like they were, like in where they're just around men more often, like they were in a brotherhood. 

01:23:52
It's just unfortunate because we don't live in a life where that is a natural part for us anymore or we have communities the way we used to. Everybody's so segregated. Everybody works in their own office that's separate, or away, or even if you work in an office, I mean, I think even working in an office full of people I mean, I think even working in an office full of people, people like socialize a little bit and like that's great for people, but compared to the brotherhood that you have, like when you do something, like what you do, because there's an inherent like, you depend on each other. Yeah, we need to rely and trust each other. So we we can't just be co-workers, we are brothers and we have to do this and I think that's so massive for feeling like you're part of something and you're part of this. This brother, brotherhood of man, the, the literally the shooting, the shit, the horsing around with guys like that, like that's mentally like relieving, that like helps relieve stress. 

01:24:39 - Jared (Guest)
It feels good it. 

01:24:42 - John (Host)
It gives you like a high level of satisfaction in life and I, I think a lot of people are missing that and I think it's really cool that you you that and then you get to have that with family, yeah, and like that's. Again, that's such a beautiful thing. It's like such a cool thing that, like you guys get to experience that, because it lets your family stay very close and I'm sure your kids are close with your brother's kids and stuff like that too. Like that's you can't beat that. I mean, from the kids' perspectives, for them to grow up in a family like that, for them to see family be close, like that. Like we're losing that nowadays. I feel like the family structure, the family unit, is like one of the things we're like losing in America. Yeah, I'm sure, and anytime I see it still happening, I'm such like a proponent of it. Let's see, I feel like I had one last question from there. Would you compare the brotherhood of firefighting compared to the brotherhood of being a cop? Any difference? 

01:25:37 - Jared (Guest)
there. 

01:25:38 - John (Host)
Especially because of the different shift hours that you're spending. Like you said, spending a third of your time with us. 

01:25:43 - Jared (Guest)
So in the cop dynamic. You have a partner a lot of times and you're with that partner eight hours a day or more and you're literally in a squad car with them. You do everything with them. I think that the brotherhood there is it's probably stronger, honestly, directly with that person, directly with that person. Uh, again, on the SWAT team, on tactical enforcement unit, that that's also another stronger family dynamic because your work as a team for everything we do search warrants, we'd be eight people doing the search warrant. 

01:26:18
You're all stuck in a van on the way to it. You're fucking around the entire time and then it's always funny Like you're smoking, you're joking, you're doing all the things, and then you get a half a block away from the house. Driver calls out you're halfway from the house. You turn on your camera. As soon as that camera goes on, it's business like you, literally just from a to b. So, yeah, that and and that's another thing too I think being in the being, in the jump out van was like you. You can't get closer than that Like you're all just fucking with each other in the best way possible, right? Yeah, it's like when I got on the fire department, because there's a lot of that too. There's a lot of the fucking around with each other, especially your cub year, you're not. It's a weird dynamic, but people are always joking with you, joking at you like they're like dude, you can't even touch me. You have no idea what I dealt with over there, like, yeah, you think that's gonna get me not not somebody who's had some experience. 

01:27:27 - John (Host)
Yeah, it probably works on somebody fresh into yeah, fresh into life, yeah. 

01:27:34 - Jared (Guest)
But, and again, those are all the the hazing that goes on there is, in the best possible way, like it's fun. That's what makes it fun, that makes sense. 

01:27:45 - John (Host)
It does. It does so, okay. So it sounds like like, generally speaking, like you don't. You don't really spend much time reflecting on mental health, but part of that is because you're generally very positively looking at life. Now you're also in a good place in life, that you're, you're in a positive mindset, so you don't find yourself needing to think about things that are concerning mental health because you're not having active problems come up or if anything's happening, it's things that you're able to deal with and you're dealing with them very quickly. They're not sitting around and festering and whatever. So, even with all that, do you I guess you still notice mental health come up at all within your profession? Within, like, yeah, other guys talking about it? Do you find that it gets brought up often? Or or maybe not even often, but when it gets brought up, taken seriously, the others take it seriously? 

01:28:30 - Jared (Guest)
Well, we just had a member kill himself a year two ago. 

01:28:34 - John (Host)
Okay. 

01:28:36 - Jared (Guest)
I don't know particulars, but he was from my now firehouse very close to my brother's. My one brother was again his senior firefighter and my other brother was his boss, so none of them saw it coming. He was the nicest dude in the world, like he was the happiest dude in the world. You just don't know, so it's hard for me to even comment on. 

01:29:03 - John (Host)
Yeah, so did the firehouse like try to do something? Did they try to like put in? Like you know, have somebody talk to you guys about it. 

01:29:18 - Jared (Guest)
Did they try to something that they try to like, put in, like you know, have somebody talk to you guys about it that they try to like, so it's, it's hard. Right, we're a close-knit family unit and I don't want to necessarily speak for their experiences or anything like that, but a lot of them and again I may be talking out of turn, because it's not me it seems like a lot of them felt betrayed in the sense of like we're all here for you, we've all always been here for you, and so it's hard, it's hard. 

01:29:43 - John (Host)
Why didn't he reach out? Why didn't he talk to any of us about this? 

01:29:46 - Jared (Guest)
And like why didn't we see anything? But it seems like they all went back in their heads and they're like there was nothing to see, like, yeah, he was going through a divorce but he was still making going to people's houses, helping them with projects, like doing all the things and I don't know. But again, I can't comment too much on it because I wasn't there for that. I did have an officer kill himself when I was a cop too, and actually my partner and I at the time got sent looking for him because it was in 2016, because it was during the dear 2020, during the dnc. Dnc was 2020, okay, um, and he was a big part of what the dnc was going to be and it was a stressful time. He took a squad car at like midnight, took a shotgun from the office and killed himself in a park Shit On Northside. 

01:30:59
Very high energy dude, former Marine, super high energy, happy all the time. It's hard to see. It's hard, especially in those careers, because you do go through so much shit, right? Yeah, I and again, I'm lucky in the sense that, like, I've seen some things. So far nothing has gotten to me. I don't lose sleep over any of the stuff I've been to some gruesome things. But 15 years in in Milwaukee and the two probably most stressful jobs and I, I feel pretty good. Yeah, I I don't want to say oh, I'm stronger than other men. I don't think that at all. I think that my brain is just wired in a certain way that and I don't know if it's something that you can learn or if it's just hey, I'm fourth generation Milwaukee firefighter. Maybe somehow genetically it got wired in there. I don't think that's necessarily true, but like I don't know, cause I talked to my brothers too, and they're the same way. 

01:32:12 - John (Host)
I mean it's definitely like a you know, probably like the way, the way you're raised, the way you're, you know like the top fence. Your dad kind of has the top fence that you guys all you boys kind of replicate from your dad because he was your, he's like the main figure, he has his life, he's the one you guys look up to and like replicate. Because that's just what kids do? We look at our dads and our moms and we pick up their behaviors and so you guys probably picked up that you know your dad is somebody who's deals with things. He's not gonna probably show a ton of emotion about something. He's gonna look, push through it like you guys gained that from him. You guys gained that mental toughness and that discipline from him. 

01:32:44 - Jared (Guest)
But again, we didn't always have it. As a kid. I went through some dark times mentally as I got older, seeing more dark things, I've gotten better. 

01:32:54 - John (Host)
Yeah, but hey, your positive mindset plays into that. You're somebody who doesn't try to focus on the negatives. That obviously seems to be a character trait that you've developed and that you've worked on here, whether it's been there or not your entire life. It's obviously something that's a part of you now that you don't sit there and waste time thinking about negative things. So why would you think about negative stuff? You're going to just focus on the positive and move forward, and that's a lot of people, unfortunately, more or less could benefit from that when it comes to a lot of their issues. Is the power of positive thinking, which just sounds so stupid? 

01:33:29
It sounds so simple, but it goes far, it really does. 

01:33:31 - Jared (Guest)
We're little computers, man. Our brains work on chemicals and other things, and what we do with our bodies can change the chemical reaction that gives our brains. Whether you're going to do it with medications, which I don't like, even as a person that's on medication, I don't necessarily take it for my ADHD, it's more for I'm awake. I'm awake now, as bad as that may sound. I don't sleep at work. I come home to my kids, the same way I did as a cop now, but I have two days to rest, but that first day I'm with the kids like it's. 

01:34:22 - John (Host)
It's like caffeine, it's like caffeine, you know, and it does the same thing as caffeine in a sense. It's just to more of an extent. I in my adult life, like ADHD came out for me a lot and now I use medication and it's basically just caffeine. It wakes me up. Otherwise I'm sitting at my desk and my brain feels super freaking foggy, super foggy. I cannot think of the next thought after the first thought of like what a God dang it. But with it it's the thought. The next thought just flows. 

01:34:44 - Jared (Guest)
I'm like okay, I can, but also, I was on the carnivore diet for nine months. Okay, how'd you like that? That got rid of brain fog. 

01:34:54 - John (Host)
Got rid of your brain fog? Yes, I've heard a lot about that because I've done a keto diet for a long period of time and I noticed there was the same thing where essentially, it's like removing the big carb sources. 

01:35:05 - Jared (Guest)
Yeah, I don't know if I can't do the keto things, because it I need to like a specific. This is what you can eat. Yeah, yeah, and that's why the carnivore carnivore is very strict on that meat eggs yeah, yeah if you want it. 

01:35:19 - John (Host)
Um, so you like that. 

01:35:20 - Jared (Guest)
You felt like it really helped with your brain fog and just yeah, very focused it's hard in the uh, the firehouse because people cook delicious meals and, uh, I bring in my own food. I would still pay for for the day for the meals and I'd pick it whatever I can eat. But bringing an extra food, cooking every meal, that's hard, you know. But I do think that and as a mental state, like, oh my god, that was so much better I've been interested. 

01:35:50 - John (Host)
But, yeah, definitely, it's how sustainable it is. Like even if I could sustain it, sustain it for a month or two, I feel like it'd be very hard to sustain multiple months that was big because I've tried it before. 

01:36:00 - Jared (Guest)
It was I always cramped up and stuff, but my brother, josh, been doing five, six years now. 

01:36:07 - John (Host)
Wow, yeah, I'm assuming he's super strict stays, stays lean with it Like I'm sure he stays really lean, super lean, keeps his muscle mass pretty well too. 

01:36:14 - Jared (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, and he's 40 years old and he's a sleepless elite too, because he makes fun of me all the time. 

01:36:23 - John (Host)
Why are you tired all the time? I don't know, man for you. Maybe we can kind of finish off the podcast with this With your brothers and you guys getting older and getting closer, because I got to see your brother more like, a little bit like when he bullied you a little bit more, being a freshman and a senior in high school. That's the relationship I thought way more of. But I also understood that was a high school relationship, him kind of being the leader of the wrestling team. It was the hazing because we were freshmen too. Wrestling team and it sounds like it was the hazing because we're freshmen too. But how, how would your guys's relationship develop? Because it's like it sounds like you guys have gotten a lot closer and like. Has that closeness also developed into like, like. Could you have an emotional talk with your brother? Could you guys like, lean into each? 

01:37:01 - Jared (Guest)
other about stuff like that nowadays. I think that we jake and I anyway built you. You were around for that too. Yes, you were around to see when we did that Because our friend groups combined. You know, joey, derek, all of those guys we all hung out. You were a part of that. Yeah, so Jake was one of my and is probably still one of my best friends, you know. So, yeah, my best friends you know. 

01:37:30 - John (Host)
So yeah, and then like with your other older brother, with Josh, like have you? 

01:37:36 - Jared (Guest)
guys just gotten closer, like Within the last two years of me being on the job, especially being on the job. 

01:37:39 - John (Host)
So prior to that you guys didn't necessarily build up the relationship too much, but being on the job and having him be a senior. 

01:37:46 - Jared (Guest)
Always friendly, always a big brother, always. I mean, we're there for family events, christmas stuff, like that, um. But I think I feel like that we've gotten closer within, within being a part of the same career yeah, so and like now, the three of you guys like. 

01:38:05 - John (Host)
so you said like you do feel like you guys are able to come to each other with you know a more emotional issue or something you know mental. Do feel like you guys are able to come to each other with you know a more emotional issue or something you know a mental health problem, whatever you guys would talk with each other about that kind of stuff. 

01:38:15 - Jared (Guest)
Yeah, if we did too. We're all firemen, so it's, you know, still not super there. 

01:38:19 - John (Host)
Yeah, I was going to say that's like part of it. Right, there's still like the. That doesn't really bother me. 

01:38:33 - Jared (Guest)
But I'm being truthful about it, so I can only expect them to be truthful about it. You know what I mean. I don't think necessarily to us it's the macho-ness type of thing. I think it's genuine, you know. 

01:38:48 - John (Host)
Yeah, yeah, and would your dad? Would you guys like talk closely with your dad about you know stuff like? 

01:38:55 - Jared (Guest)
that or no? Yeah, we could. I mean, he talks about very specific times for him that have fucked him up. He was a lieutenant at a fire where he know he should have went back in but a chief said, no, building is clear, everybody out. And a kid ended up dying. And he still talks about that to his day, that that fucked him up, because he's like I should have just fucking, should have just said no, we're going in, but it wasn't his decision. Yeah, so like stuff like that, something that's controlled. 

01:39:31
I think I think I've been lucky so far in life too that nothing as far as my job related stuff has been like man, I, I could have saved that kid and I didn't get a chance to. Where you have to like live with a regret that would yeah, yeah, yeah, I could see that being what fucks me up. But I do a search now I find a dead body. It's like, oh, there was no chance, that's not going to bother me. I go to a shooting scene. A kid even is shot. I had no part in it. There's nothing I could have done, like I'm going to do everything to save him. I'm going to do everything I can, but the will of the world just happened right. 

01:40:18 - John (Host)
Yeah, you accept that there's chaos in this world, and if you react to every bit of chaos that's happening, you're going to be left. 

01:40:25 - Jared (Guest)
You won't make it at all. 

01:40:26 - John (Host)
Yeah, you're going to be emotionally drained by the end of it. 

01:40:35 - Jared (Guest)
Yeah, make it all. Yeah, you're gonna be emotionally drained by the end of it. Yeah, even doing cpr and somebody passing away during that it's like, yes, could you have changed one specific thing and maybe they would be alive, but brain dead, like that that's. It's super hard in that aspect, like you would have to really fuck something up. I would have to really fuck something up to be like I could have saved. Yeah, yeah, that just hasn't happened yet. Talk to me in 20 years when I retire, and we can go back and circle that. 

01:40:59 - John (Host)
But it's good that you still have a positive mindset of looking at this as, yeah, you can only change the world and affect so much. You can only do your job, and the more you can let stuff, that stuff like that, affect you, the more you're not going to be able to do your job as well at the in the end and maybe not help somebody else you could have helped that you know and then take that pain back to your family. You don't want to be doing that. You want to be able to go back to your family and not be carrying the burden of the things you just saw or had to experience, because you want to be a happy dad and be a happy husband when you come home, I'm sure every day, but carrying those burdens would just feel unnecessary. 

01:41:36
Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah Well, thank you so much today for coming and telling me your story and answering some questions here. Yeah, it's cool to hear about the growth that you've gone through in like the last 10 years where I'd like I feel like I haven't caught up with you as much like it was. I want to like hear more about what it was like for you to meet kimberly and yeah, uh, kind of like some of that process for you that I want the same thing to hear about all your life stories yeah, just talked about me for two hours. 

01:42:05 - Jared (Guest)
I would like you know. 

01:42:06 - John (Host)
Hey, well, another time let's well, let's plan a time to hang out too, and then let's get a drink, let's get something to eat, whatever. Let's get together and we can talk about my life and what some of the changes I've been through in the last two years too. 

01:42:17
Yeah, hell yeah, um well, thank you guys for tuning in for another podcast. Uh, it's been a few months since I posted the last one, so it's been a little bit busy. Uh, as I kind of actually just mentioned earlier in this podcast to Jared that I got a baby coming in September, so life and brain was just a little preoccupied with a lot of other stuff and was a little bit bad about planning. But more podcasts will be coming soon. So if you guys like this and enjoy it, please like and subscribe. Otherwise, thank you and have a great rest of your day. You.