Comedy, Coffee, and Coping with Paramedic Jason Patton of Fire Dept. Coffee
Firefighter, paramedic, and social media sensation Jason Patton joins host JT to talk about balancing career, family life, and a vibrant online presence by blending humor, education, and community impact.
When he's not creating hilarious viral videos about safety and emergency response, Jason serves as VP of Fire Department Coffee. This certified veteran-owned business is committed to exceptional freshly roasted coffee and supporting fellow firefighters and first responders in need through their charitable foundation.
Jason's story is about the art of finding your edges with laughter, inspiration, and an unwavering commitment to service. You can learn more about Fire Dept. Coffee on their website or follow them at @firedeptcoffee. To catch Jason's content, follow @firedepartmentchronicles.
-
JT 0:00
All right, ladies, gentlemen, welcome back to the podcast today I'm sitting down with Jason Patton. Jason is the co you could call it the founder Fire Department coffee
Jason Patton 0:08
No, I was named the CO I'm not even a co founder of just buy so the fire pump coffee was founded in 2016 I came on board about six months later so vice president is what I read in part owner go
JT 0:19
okay awesome. Honestly, the research I've done which clearly for my first question isn't wasn't thorough. is one that you are a very animated guy you're very passionate you've got one hell of a sense of humor, but as I was doing my research at I was listening to some other podcasts you're on and and the funniest thing I think I heard somebody say was if I was deaf, I would love watching you which was like, because just how animated you are which i The guy was even trying to be funny but I think I laugh for like two minutes straight.
Jason Patton 0:55
I definitely don't lack in the animation department.
JT 0:59
Is that something that he is just always been? You've always been that way
Jason Patton 1:02
ya know? I've always I've always loved being animated in my life in fact at some point in time my videos I had to crank it back slightly because I really think so animated like and there's a point where it becomes not as funny just becomes annoying so yeah, I've been like that my pretty much my entire life man I've I've made facial expressions that's why I have massive wrinkles on my forehead and stuff which someone say you should get Botox and like I'm good man. That natural happens is
JT 1:32
that you're both ways where you make facial expressions like my wife she she makes fun of me she's like you can't control your face like you do you don't have an ability to control it so whenever the emotion is good bad whether you like it's out there
Jason Patton 1:45
Yes, I definitely I wear my emotions on my face like it is extremely obvious I used to say I've color coded emotions it's pretty you know if I'm upset happy you know, whatever it is. But I think that's good man I if I have to like hide something then I probably can't like I'm in front of a patient that I know the outcome is not going to be very well I need to be able to be you know there in the present in the moment but yeah, yeah, very hard for me to hide emotions.
JT 2:15
So let's get into that we because we went through my patients not everybody is going to know exactly what you're talking about. You know, we can go back to Tom your mechanic but But you went on, you went on came on the fire department, what 12 years ago, 13 years ago.
Jason Patton 2:27
I've been a paramedic for 17 years a firefighter for 15
JT 2:33
years. Now I want to say strange transition, but you went from this job as a mechanic a self proclaimed not the best of mechanic you get into the fire stirs. Is that something that immediately resonated with us that somebody like right from the very beginning, like oh, man, I found my calling this is it.
Jason Patton 2:51
You know, I gotta tell you, when I went to become a mechanic, and I did that, because my father was a mechanic and he talked about it and I thought kind of like, following the lineage of what he was doing. I thought that was my what I should be doing. It wasn't I want to do this. In fact, I walked in, I went to thing called Ford ASSET. It was a school that taught you specifically about Ford vehicles, they, you worked at a shop and kind of went from mechanic mechanic, depending on what we were learning on for that, that period of time. And I remember like learning this stuff. It was cool, fascinating. But I had zero passion for it. It was like, I'm just just doing this. And in fact, my father before even got into it, he knew what kind of person I was. And he's like you, this is not you, man. Like this is not what you should be doing.
JT 3:39
Right from the beginning. Oh, yeah,
Jason Patton 3:41
my dad had the ability and attention to detail that I didn't really learn until I got into video editing. Like that's, that's when I learned Oh, that's where I have my attention to detail. But anything outside of that, I was just not I didn't have a ton of it. I mean, I I loved learning so I loved learning the electrical pieces of electrical diagnosis I was in when leak water leak, that kind of thing. But when I found when I went to EMT school, I was like this is it like I had such a passion. I was like do the human body's insane. paramedic school. I mean, I had a full panic attack the first day of paramedics COVID After that was good, but it was like I found my passion in fire school. There was just something so like, no matter if you're male or female like animalistic about, you know, spraying water on fire, like pushing past your fear points. And it was just such a cool thing.
JT 4:33
You know, so a lot of people that are hearing this I've already gonna have seen your video at some point. If not, we're gonna have all the links in the show notes. And the what you guys done with social media and it's this idea of of a first responder putting it out there on social media but but in a comedic way, right. First of all, it's brilliant. And when you talk about the video editing I had so much respect for because I've watched a lot of you Your videos and the back and forth in the constant changing and I'm like, fuck is this must be a monster to edit and then I found out you're doing it or you almost ruined a relationship with
Jason Patton 5:11
my brother. Yeah, brother. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that was a fun time.
JT 5:18
Yeah. Did you? Did you have any experience in this? Or was it something you can just jump to through?
Jason Patton 5:23
No, I learned this like kind of on the fly. It's, it's funny man, a lot of things in your life come by necessity, necessity you either, you know, I think that's the real forks in the road where you get to a point where you're like, I'm either going to learn this skill, figure out how to do it, or I just have to move on to something else. And I loved making videos, I loved painting pictures and educating people through like, like funny videos. And my, my brother, when I decided to go to the next level of kind of video production that wasn't just my cell phone. My first big video was my CPR video. Love that it was such a cool, like, I got to teach people how to do CPR, which I own a comedy CPR company, but it got to do it on a much larger basis. And he helped me put it together, edit it, and I did my brain is like, No, you need to move that back in eighth of a second. That is where the comedy lies. And that is so hard to someone who's like, I don't want to do this for the next 12 hours.
JT 6:24
I'm not getting paid for this. That's exactly what it was. He's like, I'm not
Jason Patton 6:27
getting paid for those days. And so he helped me do I don't remember how many it was, but I would imagine it was somewhere around 12 videos or something. And he at the very end of it. My My wife is the one I'm sure you heard this, but my wife was the one that was like, Hey, call me doesn't want to do this anymore. I'm like, I'm completely oblivious. The next day coming? Yeah, I was like, No way. And the next day is like, hey, so I'm not doing this anymore. For you. I was like, Okay, I get it. I
JT 6:54
get it. Yeah. And one of the reasons I was I was kind of so amazed by this because I knew nothing about video editing, right, and I would say was doing a podcast for another company. And I'm like, I'm just gonna start I'm gonna, we're gonna record these and then we're going to do I'm just gonna edit. And I'm not even moving right? I feel like I'm literally stationary. But there's more than one camera. Yeah, do nothing about like frames per second. And so I was video something on a phone and then I was trying to edit it on an editing software and they're kept being this this drift and what was supposed to be an hour long video. Like, this is no joke. Yeah, took me eight to 10 hours to edit this thing. So I was constantly chopping. So I mean, I'm probably boring everybody with my my story, but I just found it really, really difficult technical and you really had to have a love for it. Otherwise you would lose your freaking mind.
Jason Patton 7:44
But it that's what it is, bro is it's such Sorry, I had to adjust my camera and know that my phones or my, my computer science over here? No, you're right, man. That was I think that was the biggest thing for me was you just don't realize the amount of time and effort that goes into editing and the amount of I mean, my videos average 25 to 55 seconds, right. And I gained an immense amount of respect for people that are filmmakers, people that make two hour or hour and a half long movies. And I've seen the productions that go into those things into like to put those things together is it's psychotic. It is psychotic and
JT 8:30
so overwhelming that I mean, I couldn't even fathom because if there's so much detail, and we're coming in off track, but I like I look at where you are now. Like everything is intentional that's behind you. Like this isn't this wasn't a mistake. Like you just didn't hang that stuff there on a whim and be like, I wonder if this looks good. It's meant to be there that it's there's been thought and that's just this thing that's behind you. So to think about doing that for national film, man, it just it just seems it would be so overwhelming that I can't really wrap my head around it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This all leads to the fact that you've taken this, this kind of forward facing comedic, these videos that you put out there, and they're fantastic. But at the same time that there's a lot of truth to what you're doing. And you've also resonated you know, or you also communicated some of the heavier things that come along with with the fireside as well. And yeah, you know, there's this this thing around first responders in this kind of dark comedy, you know, that they're able to laugh at things maybe other people don't and in my opinion it's not it's not being callous. It's a coping mechanism, right? We deal with things on on a daily basis. If you can't laugh at a man or you would you would just be so depressed, you wouldn't show up for work, which happens too, right? So what has been your experience kind of overall with with the feedback that you've gotten from from the first responder community and I'm sure there's law enforcement The community kind of weighs in on these things as well. But what is that been for you? And have there been some some people that have kind of been vocal against it? Yeah,
Jason Patton 10:09
in the beginning, I had more people that were vocal against it. Really? Yeah, it was. It was it's a new concept. When I, when I started doing it, it was a much more nuanced kind of subject of first responders, being in the social media light, and then kind of highlighting some of the things that we've done since then, you know, was it July 2019 2020, is when Tik Tok really exploded, so more people were able to create content, they didn't need a lot of production or video stuff behind them. So in the beginning, there was but what I found was those people weren't like, they weren't supporters of anything. They just weren't the naysayers. You know, in the fire service we found and even in the EMS, there's, there's just a select amount of people that they don't care if it's good or bad, they just don't like it because it's different than the way they think. And I believe that's actually humanity in general. But it was a very small select of people once we were able to move past them, and they were totally great. But recently, it is it is 99.9% Positive. There was one comment every once in a while where someone's like, this is BS, or I don't like the way that this was portrayed. But I always try to make sure all my videos are portrayed in a fun light way. And if I'm making fun of anyone in it, it's probably me that I'm making fun of that. I know. And that was stupid in the call. But a lot of those calls were meat. A lot of those costs were Yeah, so a lot of the stupid people and those are me, the things that I've done stupid throughout my life. The one where the I haven't said this live yet, but the one there's one where I talked about a guy who's about to crap himself going to the hospital. I forgot that was me. That was me. I was I was going to shit myself. It was bad. I barely made it to the hospital. Yeah, it was so bad. So like, it mostly damages me making fun of me. But all of it if you look at the underlying thing, like epinephrine use chest pain, the guy who fell from hanging lights, like it's all educational. These are signs and symptoms of a concussion. Like the this is how you use an epi pen. This is how you don't use an epi pen, that kind of thing.
JT 12:17
That everyone? Yeah, that was that was a good one. But and even the ones that even if it's not you, if you're calling somebody out for using, you know, an ambulance as a taxi. Yeah, listen, that's low hanging fruit that should be called out, right? Yeah. When you first started doing this, how was it to put that out into the world? Because, you know, it's almost, it's a vulnerability, right? When you when you put something out, you create something, it's yours. Yeah, that no one else is really doing it. And then you throw it out to the world. And now us waiting. Because at the end of the day, it goes on social media to get to get likes or or not get likes. So what was that experience? Like for you waiting for that feedback? And, you know, where did you kind of find yourself mentally, you know, trying to see how the bounce back so social
Jason Patton 13:07
media has been a journey of mentally it's has been one of the most rewarding things I've ever been in. been involved with, besides like, obviously, my daughter being born was an incredibly cool thing. Like,
JT 13:20
it was a distant second. Yeah. You
Jason Patton 13:23
know, and firefighting, like in paramedics, like I love all that stuff. But social media has been one of the most mentally taxing things I've ever dealt with. Because, people, if people don't like you, in person, they're probably not going to say it, or they're say it like, Hey, I'm not gonna like some of the things you do. I'm like, you know, people on social media don't care, they will say the most cutthroat things you've ever heard, like, their, their immediate responses. This is so dumb, you should offer yourself like Jesus that was. So but it, it teaches you throughout, like, while you're creating these videos, or you're creating these things, that the intent should be that you're doing it to entertain people, but have a great understanding that you cannot entertain everybody, like there was going to be negative feedback. And as long as the negative feedback for me is somewhat constructive, like hey, man, this was cool, but I think this might be better next time. All right, I'll take that. But if people are just blatantly jerks man, then I'll block them or whatever. But it's been fun man. It's and it you know, what it made me really realize is that you cannot put the weight of the world on a single video or on a single part of your life like you cannot do that. You need to be able to okay, this didn't go the way I wanted it to move past that you'll feel the emotions that you should feel and move on to the next piece.
JT 14:45
You know, I was always class clown and I love people making people laugh. It's kind of you know, I do stand up comedy the side and and, you know, when you first start doing that, especially on a bigger platform, and you don't get that feedback At first, I think we were you know, there's a reason that we could get into some some deep psychological reasons that we like making people laugh. Right. You know, maybe we didn't have hugs, whatever it is, but But I remember the first time I bombed on stage, and Jason wasn't just a bomb, like it was brutal, like a like just crickets. So it was only like, you know, a six minute little bit that we were doing. And I mean, it hurt me and at first, so I really what I'm trying to get to is, you know, where they're ones at first, where you're just waiting, because that's the problem with social media. You know, it's like this instant, you know, yay or nay. You got to keep go check. You gotta go share that in itself. Man. That is a vicious unhealthy loop to be in. So
Jason Patton 15:48
it's so unhealthy man. So unhealthy, bro. And I don't I don't discredit that I have a good understanding that I have to have a good understanding. There are videos that are going to accelerate. I had a video I posted recently, I checked it 40 minutes in, and it had 1.1 million views more than I normally get. So like, it was like, yeah, it was almost 2 million views in the first 41 minutes. It was psycho. It was crazy, man. But within that I have to have an understanding that there are videos that I'll put up like, in a secret. It's always the ones that I spend the most time editing first responder haunted house in the two right? Took me three weeks to edit that stupid video just because of all the things I'm putting in all this stuff. And it was one of my worst performing videos, but I knew that posting it it was going to be a very select amount of people that were going to appreciate it it was gonna be well, just people in the you know, so. Yes, very unhealthy. And it's funny you say that because I won't do stand up comedy. For that reason. I have like a massive fear. I dude, I can ad lib. I'm a great emcee. I know how to work crowds. I can work crowds really well. And I'm very good at that kind of stuff. And I feel good doing speeches. But there's something about a stand up. Stand up open mic. I'm terrified, bro, I don't want it.
JT 17:13
There are two different things right? Like I thought, because, I mean, I don't I don't want to, you know, I can be witty at times, right? There's times I could come back quickly. I'm having a hard time find my words now. So no one would know that. Usually, in the moment, I could I could come up with something funny. So I'm like, Yeah, this standard thing that's gonna be that's gonna be right up my alley. And it's two completely different. Yeah. It's like comedic sciences, because I've met other people where I've talked to them. And they're not funny, like when I just talked to him, like, not funny. But when they get on stage, they're fucking brilliant, like, so it's two different things. And even the crowd work side is fascinating to me that but people who can do that, like I've seen comics get up there and do an hour's worth of just crowd work. And I that is such an impressive art to me that it's yeah, it blows my mind. All right. So when you're doing these videos, a lot of times you're incorporating other members of the fire department. I mean, are there times where like, like, Jason, I'm just having she's hungry. I'm just trying to get some rest. Yeah, I don't want to be the guy operating the drone today, or whatever it is, ya
Jason Patton 18:24
know? So funny. You say that? If you notice, I don't know when it transitioned. But let's just say 2019. If you notice, there was a period where in my videos, there used to be people, videos, and then it just becomes me, all me. And that's why because I understood man, I'm like, talking to these guys. I'm like, Hey, can you come out here and I'll be filming, like, come on, bro. Like really, I don't want to do this, that and so it got to a point where it's like a necessity. Plus, when I write characters, the characters are expressing an emotion a certain way that I think they should express it in my head, and I know how to express that emotion. And also, those 45 second long videos, most of those videos are, I don't know, a minimum of 90 minutes of filming. So I'm like doing each character for 10 or 15 minutes playing with the way that they're saying things ad libbing some of the verbiage so it just makes it easier but for fire department coffee, we have a we fly a cinematographer in and you know an audio person, we bring in all of our all of our people that have been in all the videos Natalie, Josh, all those guys. And, and then Illinois Fire Services Institute is nice enough to allow us to come in there and kind of you know, create some fun and again, it's all educational in some way shape or form content around there.
JT 19:45
This is probably a cliche question, but did you have any concept of the traction that that your videos you know even you know Fire Department coffee, they've got a massive following. Did you have any clue that this was going to take off like it did?
Jason Patton 19:59
No No Not Not in a million years would I ever think that this would turn into the thing it didn't because it literally started off with the way most people start off on my cell phone it was on my cell phone I was just having a good time you know different paramedics different EMTs you know different firefighters that kind of stuff and then I noticed that videos needed to change slightly so I you know, I've add to so I know when I'm when I'm tired of making a video type I need to change it because most likely my viewers are going to be the same way but no man i and especially with Fire Department coffee if I remember coffees like as they're aware of Coffee Company and are following is massive like it's so cool to see that people enjoy it. You know
JT 20:41
what, let's talk about some of the ways that fire department coffee is is also giving back right? It's amazing products kinda has a it's got amazing social media but but there's this service side aspect of of what you guys are doing. Just kind of give us an elevator pitch on some of the things you got. You guys are doing. Yeah, so 2016
Jason Patton 20:58
Fire Department coffees, founded by Luke Snyder, Navy veteran, active duty firefighter at the time. I come on about six months later because of my videos of Fire Department Chronicles. And the fire department coffee blend was one of the first blends that kind of launched Fire Department coffee and the the mission was to give back a portion of it to first responders and sick and injured fire first responders is what we say. So from there, we decided to create the fire department coffee Charitable Foundation and give back portions to directly to firefighters or benevolent funds that support their firefighters. And then this year, we launched the fire department coffee shirt, the Month Club and coffee the Month Club, we get a different fire department each month, Miami Dade, you know, Indianapolis, and we create custom logos and custom blends of coffee just for them. And within that we sell all of this coffee and shirts, we give back a portion of that to them. And we average $10,000 A month is what we're giving back to those those benevolent funds, which we think is just so cool, man, we get to help people when they're sick or injured. As huge. Thank you. It's
JT 22:03
absolutely huge. Yeah, from from the time you've come on the the fire department, you know, it doesn't fall completely in line with but but you know, there's been a lot of talk around the veterans in dealing with, you know, PTSD and just the the effects of trauma on on people. And that's really there's there has been some spillover, I think quite a bit to within the first responder community. What is what's been your experience about how that the the mental health side of the first responders is looked at compared to even from the time that you came on? It's improved immensely,
Jason Patton 22:38
which is very cool for me to see, because so many firefighters, it's since the dawn of history, anytime there's been war, you know, shell shock, that's PTSD, like all that fun stuff. It's always people have always tried to suppress that, that those natural, like those physiological responses to what we see and hear all the time. And I'm not comparing what we do to people seeing war like that. I don't think those are even close. But we it's been incredible to see that that the fire service people in general are like recognizing this going, hey, it's much better to invest in people's mental health as a baseline, and then kind of treat it or help them find things to be able to work on it, whether it's through therapists or be able to have the correct coping skills. And it's much better to invest in that small amounts over time, or give them a good amount when they first start like now most people most fire departments, whenever people guys or girls come on, they actually do a class in the beginning about mental health better than when I started. And even before me, it was worse, where you saw something bad. And you were like, Oh my God, that kid was dead, like that kid died. And they're like, I mean, literally, I heard this out of somebody's mouth when I first started and it was a battalion chief said to me, Listen, if you can't handle this stuff, man, you need to get out now. And it's like that is not the right response. even close. So the response now is yes, validation. Hey, man, that's normal. It's normal to feel the way that you're feeling. And do we need to talk about this. So that better meant firefighters and paramedics and police officers and everything with better mental health make better first responders which makes better outcomes for patients? That's that's kind of the way I like to think about it.
JT 24:26
Yeah, and it's just not the fire department. I mean, first off, let me back up. It's something you witnessed something traumatic, we're not designed to just deal with it. Like, Hey, you can't deal with this. You need to well, if you can, you're fucking sociopath. Yeah, no, we're like, so first thing going, Hey, if, if you're having a hard time with this, that that means you're a human right. And this is a normal response to dealing with on normal circumstances right on normal events. And I think that from what I've seen and I've had a lot of firemen on here. But But you've guys have been I don't know if this is fair, but it seems to me that you've been better than the law enforcement community, right? Because there's still this thing about carrying a gun and and yeah, you know,
Jason Patton 25:14
well, their response to them a lot of times a lot of times it's, they don't want to say anything because they will lose their their service weapon when when they do say something. It look, I've seen some of the craziest stuff, like I've seen people cut in half and had two other dead people in one shift. And you know, like, a 30 year old woman who died from overdosing and you know, in like a woman who had cancer growing out of her breasts so badly that I could see the tumors when when I pronounced her dead, like, like crazy stuff, man, like, and in all three of those were all in one shift that I get back and I'm like, typing up my last report. And my Katherine's like, you good, bro? Like, what did you just go through? So, yeah, man, it's just it's crazy. Because this is like so deep dude, that the the layers of this and it's, you know, moral injuries and things like us feeling like we need to be the toughest person at all times in the room. Which sometimes man just saying like, Yo, that wasn't normal. Like, I don't know how I feel about that. And other people go on. Yeah, yeah, that it's that's the right way to feel about that, that sometimes can really, really change the trajectory of somebody's future. And also understanding that I've never seen anything on shift that was so bad that I needed time off. But I did go through some really bad personal things where I needed time off. Just being okay with that as well.
JT 26:40
Yeah, yeah. Right. And then not feeling a punitive response for saying that. Yeah. Right. And that's, that's where I think I think you're right, when it comes to the gun owners. There is an identity wrapped around the firearm that's always on your hip. Right. That's what police officers do. And when that's taken away, whether it's intentional or nots, people feel there's a punitive response. So yeah, that's, that's, I don't know how to tackle that. Right. Because that's a that's a tough one. But in the in the military deals with the same thing, because when we talk about security clearances, you know, the whole thing of consequence, a habit was started, because, you know, I'm in law enforcement, and I quit drinking in 2019. And I did, and it wasn't just because I held this trauma and all these things, but but it was, it became a coping mechanism for me. And I've seen a lot within the first responder community. So as many great habits as we can learn, whether it's in the military, and the first one, it doesn't even matter where because here's the thing, like even you said, Hey, you haven't seen what these guys in war scene have seen. But But veterans and first responders, you know, they don't have the monopoly and trauma, right. So anyone can start finding these coping mechanisms that can bring them down the rabbit hole of pain and destruction. Yeah. So what is your experience within the fire department of how they're kind of dealing with that? Or even seeing somebody where, you know, back in the day we'd go a Johnny's boy, boy, he's really getting after it at night with the booze and man you see these? He's been hooking up with all like, Yes. And where was almost promoted? Where now we can go? Yeah, oh, my God, John might be in trouble. Johnny might be hurting. Yeah,
Jason Patton 28:26
I mean, don't get me wrong, is that first of all, like, yeah, good job. On both, like guard girls and guys are like, go get it, man. That's awesome. But I think I think all that's really happening is that the this is like things that just take so much time we don't learn to recognize signs or symptoms of of these types of things immediately, and you take one class and it's like, they should know how to recognize this now. No, because the signs and symptoms are so different for people like I am Some people become hyper vigilant in circumstances because of whatever's going on with their PTSD or whatever it is, or are they they, you know, kind of become more of a forefront person in conversations because they they're trying to bury the things that are in their head. So they want to talk more and be out more me i regress, I regress back into the shadows. Like, I don't want to talk to people. I just want to I do you can talk to me, I'll give you the answer, but I don't want to talk anymore. So it just really depends, but I think the most important thing is asking the question, are you okay, like, or recognizing when someone says something that seems outside my friend on shift, he was really he was, I was relieving him? Or no, he was relieving me on the truck. And he came on and we were talking and I was like, how you doing bro? And he's like, just not enough ambient in the world, man. And I was like, that's that's an odd thing to say to me. Why is that and we went through a whole thing. He ended up going to get treatment. He was like he was gone for 60 days getting treatment and it was just simply because he was using stuff to try to like hold on and So sometimes just saying like a dude I'm telling you is like a waterfowl. It was a it was a waterfall. I was like, What do you mean by that, bro? You okay? Just like he's like wanted to tell me he needed to find someone to tell and it was just one cut one question. And initially and he's been he's been doing great ever since.
JT 30:16
Oh, good, good. Like, man, I don't I didn't really expect this. I just want to know if you better get ready Do you have three hours? Yeah. Yeah, but you made a good point before it's somebody going, Hey, that wasn't normal or that one one person's little bit of vulnerability, especially if it's somebody that other people look up to. is sometimes is it a great way to lower those barriers and then everyone feels comfortable? In talking about and to my experience has been the other way to do that is through comedy. Yeah, right. There's something about laughing together. You get a bunch of you get a bunch of firemen, EMTs paramedics in one room. And there's still this machismo, right? You made me take especially if you don't know you don't know each other. You walk in and you know, everyone's you show one funny video. And everyone laughs together. Yeah. Dude, it is it completely changes everything
Jason Patton 31:16
it does, man it does. And it's funny, because I'll go visit stations drop off coffee, if I'm in like, if I'm in different cities and stuff and just stop by and say what's up? And you're right, is what I love about it, man, is that a walk in a room. And if everybody in that room knows me, and everyone knows, I'm the funny guy. And I'll bust off a couple jokes, and we'll have a good time. There were still a level of respect in that room. Like I can't there's like, I know, there's things I can't say I know, I can't make fun of certain people because you gotta like respect that house man. And it's just which is so funny. Because you'll see people go into other people's houses, and they'll make fun of people in a really aggressive way that you would with people you work with. And immediately the guys were like, Get out here, bro. Like we're not You're not doing that. Yeah, exactly. But it is fun, man. And I couldn't agree with you more. One of the one of the first times I realized that my videos are making an impact was very early into making my videos a guy reaches out they had a really bad call multiple deaths on a like family members on a on a call and they the guy reaches out and he's like, Dude, I just want you to know, man, we were like, back to the station like, holy crap, what did we just see, someone happens to pop on a video, we laughed for two seconds, and then kind of brought maybe a little bit of the fog out of the room. And we were able to talk. So I was like, I don't care where you find that whether it's me or anyone else if that if it does that, man. That's amazing.
JT 32:38
Has there ever been a time where you're like, why am I why am I doing this? This is a huge amount of time that I'm investing in this. And then you know, you have a phone call like that or you have you know, somebody come up to you and and say something where you've made this positive impact in either their lives or their departments lives and you're like, Oh, that's right. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's why I do it.
Jason Patton 33:05
Yeah, I've had multiple I've had multiple incidences recently actually, where I made a video about choking. Not too long ago, I released it and two people reached out and said because of that video, they knew how to how to do the self Heimlich and they like one of them. i In another video I made said that their dad was having a heart attack and they were able to recognize it because of the videos. And it's just it's just such a cool experience man like I love teaching and I love doing it through humor because I think that's so much easier to process and kind of digest. There has been times where I've woken up and went What am I doing this so much bro, but I love it man. I think I'm maybe a creature of have I enjoy as a creature of habit but I'm a creature that enjoys the constant challenge in my life. I think it kind of keeps me young. I'm sure my adrenal glands still agree with that statement. It's it's cool man I enjoyed the process did
JT 34:02
well that was actually one of the things I was thinking about was the time that goes into doing what you're doing. I mean, you talked about how long you could take three weeks to edit a video and that one may not even get that great of feedback like balancing that between actually working right your time you know Fire Department coffee videos, the actual I mean that is you have to you're there you're either like taking in the product like 24/7 of coffees make this thing happen because it's I just know that you're spending a shit ton of time in front of a computer on top of family work everything else what's what's balancing all of those things spend from like,
Jason Patton 34:46
I'm what's called mainlining coffee. mainline that stuff but it's completely do not mainline coffee, anyone that's your that I think it's like anything in the world. It's, it's if you want to do great things, you have to push yourself to like just an uncomfortable place. But there is always consequences of that pendulum, like you will find like, oh, I pushed a little too hard today. And I think it's it takes time. And I know the Google thing that you sent me that kind of said, like, what's my biggest habit that I've tried that I've really tried to find, and it's it is balanced, man, it is understanding that, um, that there are times when pushing till I can't keep my eyes open, it's just not, it's not good. It's not going to do anything good for me, it's gonna make me more tired. The next day, I'm not going to be able to work as hard as I could have, if I just went to bed an hour earlier, and really tried to pick it up. Not to mention, there have been times where I've been staring at a screen trying to write a script, and I cannot get it together, I cannot figure out what this punch line is or how to connect these two characters. And I go to sleep, or I take a nap and I wake up in my brains like, That's it, man. That's how we do this. But you needed Yes, it's so needed. So balanced and just trying to find like, if you can't push any harder, sometimes stop. And there are times to push through. But I think that is like specific times physically, when you're in a fire need to grab a victim out or, you know, if I'm working out and I want to get that good calories. You know, like that's, that's what I need to do. But mentally, you know, sometimes it's good to go. That maybe take a nap. That's good for you. Yeah.
JT 36:25
You have a hard time shutting down. No,
Jason Patton 36:27
no, I am. Yeah, no, my body. My wife hates it. Like, I if it's 927 and I'm tired at 930 I am unconscious. So yeah, yeah, I don't I've never had a problem with that. In fact, I know when there's something wrong when I can't sleep. But I will say this, I don't sleep sleep up every, you know, hour and a half, you know, adjusting positions, or whatever it is. So I don't sleep all the way through the night. The other day I slept. I like fell asleep and woke up in the morning. And I told my wife, I was like, That was insane. I had energy that I haven't felt in so long. And I was like, What just happened, man? So that is a consequence of what I do for a living. It is what it is. Yeah.
JT 37:15
And that's the other thing and not to just keep harping on the mental side of of your profession. But it's shiftwork. Yeah, that you don't care how long you've been doing shift work come that witching hour of like, 230 to 430. Man, it is absolutely brutal. And then to try and come out of that and just have some resemblance of normal behavior around your family and be able to interact with people it's, and it's close
Jason Patton 37:44
to impossible it is and I'm gonna, I'm at a station right now that averages you know, 16 to 18 calls a shift. That's what just what we run. Yeah. And, in fact, if we have a slow day, we're going to run at night and last shift, we probably went to bed about 930 and woke up at 10. For an investigation, we were there till 1215 went back to sleep got up at five o'clock and never went back to sleep again. So I got five hours of sleep and God knows what kind of sleep that was. That is just normal. So it it's hard man. But that's why I encourage people don't try to do 40 years in the fire service. Like if you can or get out of shift work if you can, like I love this job. I love being a firefighter. But after 25 years, I'm going to retire and I'm going to like enjoy my retirement because we've had guys when they retire after 40 years and they're dead within a year. I'm like,
JT 38:40
yeah, man, I think I think it's important to have you have something else. I mean, not everyone is going to have you know, this massive social media following but but you've clearly found a passion for something outside of the fire department. And that's, that's huge, because you're like getting back to the identity thing. There's so many people again, this isn't this isn't just the first responders. I mean, God knows I talked to a lot of veterans that once they're done, it's like everything about them was wrapped up in this thing. And to include their brothers and sisters that they you know, they had that avenue to be able to, you know, throw up their entire emotions when they make a comment like or about Ambien or something where that's no longer there. Yeah, so having that thing outside of it is just huge.
Jason Patton 39:26
Yeah, I agree, man. And that's why that's what like one of the highest levels of suicide is retirement. That's just massive dude, it's and I could not agree with you more men just find something that is different than than this because you don't want this to be your entire life for the rest of your life. You want to have something whether it's golfing or you know, getting traveling, like whatever it is, and of course if you're traveling, you're gonna stop by a fire station. But it's fine. That's what we do. But yeah, I mean that that's just so important. So important for good mental health.
JT 40:00
Awesome, Jason, is there anything that we didn't hit that you'd like to cover? No,
Jason Patton 40:03
man, I think this is an incredible thing. Man, I think you're really highlighting some amazing stuff. And I think the conversations of mental health as much as possible should be highlighted and talked about, the more we hear it. They say in advertising that takes seven takes a customer seven times of seeing a product before they're probably gonna buy it. So as much as people hear the word, good mental health, good, good. Mental health is a good thing. The more they hear it, the more it becomes just ingrained as a natural part of their life. I think that's, that's probably the most important thing in the world.
JT 40:33
Yeah. Two quick things about that. You said it earlier. And I meant to follow up on it is, when you start a good practice, early on in career, write it with, with the understanding that people are going to suffer at some point, because they're going to see things like I said, that not normal people see all the time. And you can invest in that it benefits everyone, it benefits, the community of benefits that city, county, state, whatever department you're with, because you want somebody with a clear head as clear as possible. You know, so there's, there's a money aspect to that, too, right? You see less lawsuits? Yeah. I've had this conversation with leaders in the law enforcement community. I'm like, believe me, there's a monetary reason you want somebody clear headed when there? Yeah, I mean, we've seen enough videos. We know what this this would happen. So and for the life, man, I can't remember the second thing that you that I was gonna say. But yeah. So
Jason Patton 41:37
ladies and gentlemen,
JT 41:40
here we go. I literally did this. But listen, I appreciate what you're doing. I honestly do. Like I said, I'll have links to this. I'm excited to see where this thing goes. To see how quickly it's grown. And who knows, man. I mean, I think you're gonna be a busy man. Whether you're a fireman.
Jason Patton 41:58
I appreciate it, brother. I appreciate it, man. Yeah. Awesome.
JT 42:00
I appreciate your time. Jason, take care, man. And keep it up. You too, man.
