The Untold Side Hustle: Life Beyond Emergency Calls
TRANSCRIPT:
Narrator: [00:00:00] Due to a technical issue. No audio was recorded at the beginning of the podcast when introductions were made. Artificial intelligence to the rescue. With us today is Captain Travis Burton. Travis started a career in concrete, but quickly decided he did not want to do that for his whole life. Travis then ventured into a fire academy where he met our podcast host, Brent Harding.
Travis started out his career with Orem Fire and is currently serving as a captain with the Logan City Fire Department. Travis has been a firefighter for over 15 years, has a wife and four children, and operates three businesses on his days off from the fire department. Travis helps manage a farm, a FedEx franchise, and does subcontract work pouring concrete.
Also with us today is Ben Goberg. Ben was born in California, but grew up on a cattle ranch in Montana. Ben attended Weber State University studying finance, which. Landed him in a career in banking for 10 years. Ben received a promotion as a commercial lender in Colorado at the base of Vail Mountain with a desire to serve [00:01:00] his community.
Ben also volunteered with the Vail Mountain Search and Rescue team, one of the busiest search and rescue teams in the country. Ben loved his experience getting a taste of the first responder life and credits his passion and commitment to serve the community back to the people he met and experiences he had as a first responder.
Ben currently resides in Cash Valley, Utah, where he owns two businesses, asset Environmental Services, and is a partner in Path Maker Development. Ben is also the founder of the Cash Valley Real Estate Token, CVRE, the first RWA Utility token application in Utah. Ben is one of the firefighter support foundation's, crucial donors, and resides on the board for the foundation as the financial advisor, Brent, Ben, and Travis transition from introductions into talking about the importance of recognizing what we can and cannot control in our lives.
Brent: Sorry, sorry for the technical difficulty there for a second. Um, but, uh, we were talking about the things we can control. Do you [00:02:00] find
Ben: that, um, you guys ever had problems with knowing where to draw the line between what you could control and what you could not control? Is that something you had to learn? I had to learn that over time.
Brent: Yeah. Well I think that's a captain question for sure. But, uh, I mean, because it's a big gray area, right? Because you could go your whole career and feel guilty about stuff. Sure. Um, and that's not healthy. But there also needs to be a line of this is what we can do better and should do the next time.
Travis: Well, yeah.
And I was gonna touch on the fact that you said, you know. You realize what it was you could control, right? Your thoughts, your behavior. Um, and one of the thoughts that had, uh, came to me was, uh, a dear friend of mine, just saying, we can control, like how great we are at what we do, um, how much training do are we putting in?
And the reason I mention that is because if we are competent, confident, great at our job. I [00:03:00]think that makes your question a little bit easier to answer because then we can go move on knowing, hey, we did everything we could for this individual and we are not spending the rest of our career second guessing, what could I have done more?
And so it's training has been, you know, a huge, uh, sticking point for me because of that advice that I was given early on. And. And then again, just not trying to, trying not to internalize somebody else's problems. Um, and just knowing that, hey, I was, I did, I, I put in the time, I put in the work and we did everything we could and, and now, right.
I don't have to carry that with me the rest of my life. Um,
Brent: so what would you say though, to like a medic or somebody on your crew that you know is a good medic? They put in the time they do the training and they still make a mistake on seeing that they're [00:04:00] beating themselves up about, because that's possible.
You can be a really good medic. You're never gonna be perfectly, you're never gonna make all the right decisions, all the timely. And so how do you deal with
Ben: those? I'll, and I'll add to that thought, like when, what tortures me is. When I hear myself saying or questioning, did I do my best? Did we really do everything that we could do?
Well, the answer to that is almost always no,
Brent: isn't it? I mean, I could have stayed up one more hour training or reading or there's always more. It never ends. So where, yeah,
Travis: captain solved the problem, putting the heat on, I, I don't know guys. I don't know if, if I can say that the answer's always no, because.
So many times. And, and I'm thinking of, uh, my very first, uh, SIDS patient that, that I had, and we were working the squad and where we were responding out to the county, and I went out to Smithfield and [00:05:00] we met the Smithfield guys or the county guys in route. And I jump in the back of their rescue and we're doing CPR on this, um, infant.
And, and I. I just remember thinking to myself like, this child is already gone. Like, there's so, so I guess like for me, I sometimes we get sucked into these incidences and, and like my fallback is there was nothing that I was gonna do at that point, right? Like for that individual. Sure. What can I do now? I can make sure that I am.
Moving on that I'm healthy, that my coworkers are healthy, and, and that, and then, and then as a captain, you know, we have a lot of interaction with the family in those scenarios too. And, and that's not easy. That's always, uh, a difficult conversation to have. But being able to provide that, um, I don't know, I [00:06:00] shoulder to lean on, um, for lack of a better word, but.
Ben: Do firefighters get training on how to have that conversation?
Travis: Um, not formal. I wouldn't say Harding. Would you? Yeah. Yeah. I'm trained to
Brent: deflect it to the captain.
Travis: Yeah. I think, I think you, it's kind of on the job training.
Brent: Mm-hmm.
Travis: You know, and 'cause I don't, I don't know that I've ever had any formal training on how to have that conversation.
Um, but yeah, I, I guess I just think that in. Trying to help under people understand, um, hey, or, you know, you, you maybe feeling like you didn't perform well or you are beating yourself up over this call. I think that's where the peer support side of what we do comes in. And we, we recognize when people aren't healthy and when they're not sleeping and when they can't [00:07:00] focus and.
And it becomes a real problem, right? Not that there's a potential for it. I mean, we already know that the, the, that it exists. And so just kind of watching each out for each other and, and being able to say, Hey, like, you know, do you need help? Or, or being able to facilitate some help for that individual.
Um, but watching out for those warning signs, you know, things not right at home or being irritable or not sleeping, or not exercising, like maybe they normally would or not, not having an interest in the, the activities that they would normally get really excited about. And so then I think that's when we have to step in and, and recognize, Hey, this person's not there.
And, and it may not be any fault of their own, it's just. Maybe they don't have the tools in their toolbox to, to deal with this, right? Maybe [00:08:00] they haven't built up. Um, you know, maybe that was their first exposure to a, a SIDS patient or a fatality of some sort. And so just trying to work through that with, with each individual is.
Really what's become rewarding for me and, and why I got involved with the peer support group with Yeah.
Brent: Ron. And I think, you know, something they say on the peer support team a lot, um, when we're, when you're talking about like self care is, it's always hard. You're always way hard on yourself, right? And so I think it seems often that they're like, well, to help people work themselves out of some of their own ruts is, well if this was your partner on the rescue.
What would you say? What would you say to them? Mm-hmm. Right, because you're always way softer, way more compassionate, way more patient, more understanding. But when it's us with the exact same statement, speaking to ourselves, we're so hard on ourselves for sure. And I heard, uh, I had the opportunity to hear a guy from FDNY speak one time [00:09:00] and, um, speaking of the difference in volume, right?
So like, man, they're. Call volume compared to, you know, our town here is crazy, but, um, he, his definition of success was measured purely by willingness. Not necessarily skillset because you're not, you're human. You will make a mistake even if you've done all the training and, and hopefully those mistakes are smaller and you know, less impactful.
But he said to have the expectation to be the perfect medic or the perfect firefighter is an unhealthy mindset,
Ben: I think. I think that's super important to recognize that the idea that we are allowed to go from a state of. Non knowledge, non skill to acquiring more skill and acquiring more knowledge over time through growth and that we we're allowed to participate in helping other people along the way in spite of imperfection, I think is a lesson I had to learn too.
It's so easy to want to [00:10:00] want to execute from the very beginning at a high level, and then you prevent yourself from really taking the time to learn some of the skills that you need if you feel like you have to. Be perfect right from the get go. Right. Yeah.
Brent: Yeah. And I, and I think, you know, um, coming back to your point, there's this, I think, and you guys correct me if I'm wrong, but my opinion is it's okay to feel guilty about something that you could have done better.
Like that's a normal feeling. You should feel guilty. The problem is if you let that change some of the things you were mentioning, your life at home, your sleep, right, there's a point where this is not helpful. But I think a feeling of guilt is a normal human feeling, and if that drives you to growth and to do better.
Then you can, that's a very healthy thing, right? But to ignore it, bottle it up, say, oh no, you justify your way out of it. That's not healthy to dwell on it and live in that moment for the rest of your life. Mm-hmm. Not healthy, not [00:11:00] sustainable. Um, and so looking out for each other, but also for ourselves, allow ourselves.
To process that, feel it, learn what we're gonna do better. And then the key, uh, thing's been mentioned a couple times is move on. Right? You're in the career, you gotta be ready for the next call. And that's kind of the, kind of the unwritten mantra, right, is you gotta be ready to get back on the truck. You get back from a call like that, you know, occasionally, um, you get to go outta service for maybe a couple hours to recoup.
Um, if it was, you know, a certain level of, of traumatic. But otherwise, like, you gotta be ready to go again. Um, maybe on something even worse, in a couple more hours. And so, um, to be able to be resilient and bounce back and recover and be ready to be helpful again in the next critical moment
Travis: is, uh, and the one thing to add to that, that I found is like, we may not be impacted by this call right now for, for weeks or months down the road.
Mm-hmm. [00:12:00] Um, you know, and it may just be. A stress of some other life circumstance that finally brings you back to that, that call before you start to realize how much that impacted you. But the one thing that I, and I don't know if you guys did this unveil, but the one thing that I think that really helps me and that I appreciate, um, that we do at Logan Fire, and I think we do it really well, and I think most fire departments around the country are probably really good at this, is just having those, um.
Debriefings or mm-hmm. Or, and not a, not a formal debrief, but just tailboard Yeah. Around kitchen table talk. Kitchen table talk, you know? Yeah. Just, and just being able to communicate and, and kind of open your feelings and, 'cause that's what I've found is like the most helpful, I guess, is, Hey, this is Brent.
He's a pretty solid dude and he's having the same feelings that I'm feeling and he's being super open about him and. Maybe I can be open [00:13:00] about 'em too. Yeah. And, and then, and then, and I think it's just an, a revolving door when that happens. And I think it's pretty, really pretty special on the crews that I've been on.
And we've been able to, and then goes back to what you, I heard you talking about earlier, um, is just that comradery or the relationship that is built among the brotherhood is, is because of those types of things. Right. Um, and that's where those stronger bonds, I feel like are. Are formed.
Ben: Yeah. Yeah. We used to go sit around a restaurant table and have a couple of beers or something after an incident and that helped.
Um, I think at the time the majority of the team was pretty young and I'm, is everybody pretty young on firefighters who fire's really young right now? Young. Yeah. So I mean, for me, one of the things that shocked me most about dealing with those really high stress or traumatic incidents is that I fought.
Because of who I was and my experience that I was [00:14:00] mentally prepared to deal with some of the things that I experienced, and I was shocked when I had an emotional reaction that was abnormal. I thought that I had prepared myself in certain ways to be able to deal with some of these things and. Having to admit to myself that some of these incidents were creating emotions and that those emotions were okay and natural, and that I didn't need to feel bad about not, maybe not being as prepared as I as I thought I was, or maybe just being more human than I thought I was.
Um, that took me some time to work through.
Brent: Yeah. And, and I've found, um, with some guys it's also the complete opposite. Sometimes they feel guilty 'cause they didn't feel anything. Mm-hmm. But I know I'm supposed to, you know, going on that sits call like a normal person should react to this. And if they didn't.
That almost sends 'em in the spiral in the opposite direction of just like, something's wrong with me. Yeah. [00:15:00] Um, but I love, um, the fact that the kitchen table talks, like, I feel like 90% of all the issues can be solved right there. Um, because I feel, I think there's an interesting process that happens in your brain when you have to articulate.
Your thoughts and your feelings, like your brain is pretty good at making those connections, um, unless you never speak them right, and then they get all muddled up and can get muddy and, and story lined and skewed and distorted. But the second you have to tell somebody else, you can almost, by the time you're almost done speaking, you've solved your own problem because your brain went to work and had to form logical connections to memories and feelings and emotions.
Articulate that into words and now you've taken a very important, um, step in allowing your body to kind of recoup from what you just saw or experienced. Absolutely.
Ben: I do think that we have to be careful about how we tell that [00:16:00] story to ourselves because you can attach. A certain identity or a certain feeling to a certain story or the way you've explained a certain story.
And if we're not careful, we're attaching resolutions to things that we really shouldn't attach them to. We're putting meaning maybe in the wrong places rather than in places where we personally have identified that we want to put meaning.
Brent: Yeah.
Ben: Do you
Brent: have, you have like a good example of that or like a.
Like how, like what's the, what's a, uh, maybe a common false meaning that could be associated with,
Ben: um, I think that, uh, this, this has been my experience growing up LDS and experiencing a number of fatalities. There's a natural reaction to immediately questioning faith and God as a result of experiencing traumatic events.
I think it's okay to question [00:17:00] faith and God and all of those big questions, but I don't necessarily think it's very productive for us to immediately translate a traumatic event as the one reason why we're going to step away from the previous 20 years, or 25 years or 30 years of experience in, in an effort to explain why something happened.
Did I talk? You know what I mean? Yeah. Did I talk to you at all? Well, um, I, I mean, I, I lost my beliefs later on and carefully and academically and with my heart in the right place rather than allowing certain incidents to determine what I thought about the world. Yeah,
Brent: and, and you know, basically just through circumstance, right?
If you allow circumstance to dictate some of the, like, you're gonna be all over the place all the time. Mm-hmm. Right? And so kind of coming true to what your core [00:18:00] values are, and it's okay to, to redefine those or deepen those over time, but that's, that should be the basis of change versus, you said a circumstance or an in a single incident that now is this, you know, new.
Travis: Everything goes out the window. Yeah, exactly.
Ben: Sure. Or in the opposite direction too. Yeah. I, we, we can't point at a single event in our lives and say, this is the reason why I do what I do. I think it's tempting, you know, it's a very simple story to point to one event and say, this is why I do the things I do.
Life is more complicated than that. Yeah.
Brent: Yeah. Uh, so I want to transition a little bit into the business owner side. Um, and, and this is super applicable to firefighters because every firefighter is working at least two jobs, if not three or four. Um, and a lot of 'em are doing their own business, even if it's in, um, maybe not a full business capacity, but at least as a [00:19:00] subcontractor, a lot of subcontractors in different trades.
Um, everybody's trying to, to make a little money on the side, um, because, uh, you know. There is just not a lot of money in firefighting. I don't know if you found the same thing. Maybe as a captain you're living large, but you know, large. And so kind of what, um, at least from my experience in as a business owner, um, there is a lot of stress as a business owner as well as firefighting.
Maybe it's a little different kind of stress, but less, to be honest, less
Ben: corporal.
Brent: There's sometimes I would take the firefighting stress over the business stress any day of the week for sure. You know? And so what are some things, and you know, um, Travis was a little humble on his explanation, but FedEx Farm Concrete, I mean, you got a number of, um, probably bigger than average, what the average guy is maybe handling on their four days off.
But, uh, what are, and you know, this is for both of you, but what are some tactics, strategies [00:20:00]that you use to kind of also manage your. Your business stress, your side hustle. Stress.
Travis: That's a great question, Brent. 'cause, 'cause you're right. Like it's very relatable. Right? And for me, first and foremost, it comes down to my relationship with my family.
Um, if, and, and my wife and sometimes. So she like knowing the why, why am I doing what I'm doing? And, and hopefully. When I'm answering that question, it's going back to my family relationship and, and my wife and and family have been very supportive of, of what I do. And so, you know, and I'm super appreciative of that because without, without her support, like I don't know that the family, you know, that our family exists without her support, you know, and so for me it's, it's.
[00:21:00] Having her support, knowing my why, so I can go back to that When things get stressful, I can't tell you how many times I'm sitting in the tractor in the middle of the summer and it's getting late and I haven't seen my family for, for days and I'm just like, what am I doing? Right? And and, and it's interesting 'cause as I was thinking about it, my why has changed over time and, and I think I've.
Created this rhetoric in my mind that the why is so my family can play sports, or my children can play sports or so, so I can have this recreational vehicle to go do this with them. Mm-hmm. And, and then once you get, I, I mean, I've got a couple of those things, but then it, you know, and then it comes back around and you're like finding yourself asking that same question.
Well why, why am I still so busy or doing all this stuff? And, and. And your thoughts and I ideas start to change and maybe start to have a little bigger [00:22:00] perspective or a bigger picture on it.
Ben: And I think busyness can, for some guys, busyness can become a coping mechanism too.
Travis: Yeah.
Brent: For
Ben: sure.
Travis: Yeah,
Brent: you're right.
Well, and I think you see it in business all the time, right? Entrepreneurs that just don't stop. Mm-hmm. And in their mind, that's the boots on the ground mentality. I'm pounding pavement, getting work done. Yeah. But that's not sustainable. Right. And then you can't, and carry on like that and expect to live a
Ben: fulfilled life.
A
Brent: fulfilled life. Yeah. That's a good
Ben: way to put it. I, the way I look at stress is I try to ask myself, what kind of stress is this? There, there are different stresses for different reasons. Is this stressful because I was dumb or because I failed to plan? Is this stressful because of other people's mistakes or is this the stress that's associated with achievement?
Is this the stress that's associated with growth? If I can control the type of stress that I am [00:23:00]allowing myself to be exposed to, I mean to, to the extent possible, I find that I can identify. Where I can kind of draw a boundary in my day and say, I can put this way and go and actually do what I want to do with my life that is outside of my professional work.
Brent: Yeah. Um, do you find that based on some of your first responder experience that. Maybe some of the business problems seem less stressful. Oh, oh, yeah. Like, you know, and to the, maybe the customer or the client or whatever, it's this huge deal. Um, but in your mind you're like, this isn't a real emergency.
Yeah. Like, I can handle this, you know,
Ben: I, I've had to work on my own personal patience with the rest of the human race. And I, I think that's probably true with anybody that's experienced, uh, a lot of real stress. Or trauma or life threatening issues. I think most of those people come [00:24:00] out the other side willing to brush off a lot of the worries of everyday life.
And I, I certainly do go through my day, probably a much more calm person as a result of having had exceptionally stressful experiences somewhere else.
Travis: I like that you differentiated the, like the type of stress that you're having, right? Because I think you're right. Absolutely. That. Oftentimes we create our own stress.
Um, I mean the stress of our firefighting career or job, we go on a call and that's super stressful, right? But, uh, outside of that, your time management, um, as I was thinking about it. And, and this is the case for me. So often my time management leads to more stress. Mm-hmm. Um, because I maybe fail to, to plan correctly or, and then it just again, um, creates a kind of a revolving door [00:25:00] 'cause you're trying to work super hard, burning the candle at both ends to work on your, your second job or dab one on the side and then your.
You're neglecting your family and then your wife's upset, and then you gotta come back to work and so then you're tired. And so just time management and for me has, I'm not great at it, but I'm working, I'm a work in progress, but I, I like that you had mentioned like where was the stress creating? Mm-hmm.
Or were created. Where is it coming from?
Brent: Yeah. And 'cause it's important to put those in different boxes, right. And not lump it all together as one, you know, fight or flight response the body's gonna go through. But some of these, it feels like one. Yeah. It feels like just one big call. It feels the same.
And, and I think it's true to an extent that your brain doesn't, um, naturally differentiate. Like if it's stressful, your body goes into fight or flight. Right. And so your ability [00:26:00] though, to allow yourself to choose. Fight or flight, or rather than just whatever your body's natural instinct is, I think that's where, you know, the other part of your brain kicks in.
That's intentional. That's your choice, and you can kind of take charge and hopefully make better decisions and, and move on. Um, as we wrap up here, I'd like to end with just the couple key takeaways, um, for guys listening in that, um. That maybe something you would've told yourself 10 years ago, um, that would've helped you in, in your business, your side hustle, family job, first responder responsibilities, just, you know, if there's something that you feel like, man, if I knew this 10 years ago, maybe the last 10 years could have been this much better, or whatever.
Travis: I'll let you go
Ben: first. Okay. The first one's really easy for me. I, I would've told my [00:27:00] 20 something self to shut his mouth more. Um, I think, I think that there's always a tendency to want to know and to want to be. Capable and in charge and intentional about where we're going. I, I assumed that turning 21 made me an adult.
An adult. And, uh, it, it takes time to grow into your own maturity. I think it takes time to grow into the truth of what life really is and how every individual has the right to navigate it in their own personal way. And it's a complex decision that takes. A decade or two to learn, I'm probably still gonna take another decade to figure it out.
Um, the other thing that I would tell my younger self is to probably chill out a bit more and allow for more of my own [00:28:00] imperfections and allow them to exist without feeling like I had to eliminate. Every spec of lack of discipline from my life. I think I was probably too hard on myself in my twenties for a lot of things, and it turned me into, uh, productive machine that, uh, was definitely not sustainable.
Brent: Yeah, that's great. You know, I think, uh, we've all felt many of those things. I think that's great advice. Captain.
Travis: Well, I, I don't even know that I have reached adulthood yet. Um, I'm still working in progress myself, but age
Brent: wise, yes. Maturity. We're still, you know, I don't
Travis: know if it's ever gonna happen. Um, yeah, I mean, I've had a lot of great advice.
Um, and, and really I think [00:29:00] reflecting back. N as I touched on earlier, just knowing your why. N knowing, um, w why are you doing this? Be uh, be able to answer that and be honest about it. And if you're not doing what you love, you can be anything in this world. You want to be like it. If you can think of a job that exists, like it does exist.
Right. I mean, any, anything you want to be, you can do it. And so I just get worried that sometimes we grow up and think that we've, we've created this person that we want to become or think we want to do, and we know nothing about it. I didn't know anything about firefighting. Um, but know your why and, and then be able to find your source, you know, whether that's.
Through, uh, higher being or, or spiritual being, have your source that you can always fall back to because that's gonna serve you. We're all going [00:30:00] to undergo stress of some sort in our lifetime. We're not going to get out of it. And so I think being able to reflect back and have, have that source in our life that can help us through those hard times.
And, and then the last thing is just like relationships. Um. Find those relationships that that matter and that that mean the most to you and and fight for those relationships.
Brent: Yeah. I think if, if there's one thing that the fire service has done for me is helped me appreciate relationships because you so often see the circumstance where it came to a screeching halt, right?
And by pure accident or by intention or whatever, you just. You walk away after seeing that time and time again with the new appreciation for the way you treat people and the relationships and the way people treat you, and, and just the sense of gratitude for the [00:31:00] people that are in your life, you know?
And, um, so I think that's a valuable, valuable takeaway from the fire service, for sure.
Travis: Well, well, and just add to that, you know, I just, as you were saying that, I was reflecting on the words of the great Brian Holbrook, you know, be a little better, uh, tomorrow than you were today. Or, or be a little better today than you were yesterday and be a little bit better tomorrow than you are today.
And I think if you're thinking with those, having those relationships in in mind as you're thinking about that, you know, it just gives you some, a goal to work toward.
Ben: I like what you said about alignment. You used different words, but you're talking about your mind and your heart reflecting. On the outside that we're, we're in alignment with our, our thoughts, our emotions, and our actions in the real world, rather than being something else on the outside and wanting something different on the inside.
And I, I think that solves a lot of problems.
Brent: Yeah, well, it's right into kind of the one [00:32:00] thing I wish I would've done different from the beginning. Um, and I find myself today even slipping back to the mindset every once in a while, but it's attaching my identity too heavily to my business or to my identity as a firefighter.
And I've found looking, especially looking back. I don't think any good has ever come of that. You know, usually my worst decisions were made trying to, you know, make myself feel and look like a successful business owner. And usually the financial decisions that followed were not good. You know, trying to like keep up whatever I thought that looked like right.
Or whatever I thought a good firefighter looked like, and, and not that you can't have aspirations or. Goals, but I feel like your identity needs to be independent of what you do for a living, that who you are as a person. If I broke my leg tomorrow and was never able to firefight again, am I at peace with who I am [00:33:00] as a person?
If my business goes under tomorrow and all of this goes away, am I at peace with who I am as a person or am I so attached to that? That I'm now devastated and I don't know who I am anymore and I gotta start over. Mm-hmm. Um, and, and I think that's always an evolving a work in progress, but if, if you're on that trajectory versus the trajectory of trying to build up some image of what you think other people think of you as a firefighter or a business owner, um, again, that's not sustainable and it's a weak foundation.
You know, it doesn't take much topple that over. But, uh, so anyway. If you guys catch me being an egotistical business owner, you're pr you're allowed to call me out. Same, same here. Uh, but I really appreciate you guys coming on today and, and sharing your thoughts and experiences. Um, it's not always the easiest to jump on these things.
I know it's not everybody's favorite, but, um, we have yet have anybody on that didn't share anything super insightful. So I appreciate everything you [00:34:00] guys said and uh, we will see you guys on the next one. Well, thanks for having us.
