Debunking Leadership and Mental Health Stigma with Off-Duty Chief, Tim Eggebraaten

Jerry Dean Lund: 0:16

Welcome to today's episode of Enduring the Badge Podcast. I'm host Jerry Dean Lund and if you haven't already done so, please take out your phone and hit that subscribe button. I don't want you to miss an upcoming episode. And hey, while your phone's out, please give us a rating and review. On whichever platform you listen to this podcast on, such as iTunes, apple Podcasts and Spotify. It helps this podcast grow and the reason why, when this gets positive ratings and reviews, those platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify show this to other people that never listened to this podcast before, and that allows our podcast to grow and make a more of an impact on other people's lives. So if you would do that, I would appreciate that from the bottom of my heart. My very special guest is the off-duty chief, tim Eggebraaten. Tim has an incredible message, but what's even more incredible is how he shares the message. He's an entertainer and a musician, so he wraps those two together to talk about leadership and mental health. And Tim's also going to talk about, as a chief, how much courage it took him to go get help for his struggles when one of his good friends took his own life within the first year of Tim being a chief. Tim's incredibly fun to talk to. So now let's jump right into this podcast with my very special guest, and Tim is called the off-duty chief, and we will let you explain that, tim, and then tell the audience a little bit about yourself.

Tim Eggbraaten: 1:49

Absolutely so. I was in law enforcement for about 28 years and chief of police for my last five and a half years and I retired oh, it was like six and a half years ago already and it's been a blink of an eye but I went right at age 50, and in Minnesota we can start drawing our pension at age 50. I took a penalty for going early, but we can talk about that later and it was a great career. It honestly was and worked with true heroes and it was amazing. And then when I retired, I transitioned right into motivational and inspirational speaking and these music and stories and we ride this roller coaster about finding our beat, the rhythm of life, and how do we navigate the crappy stuff in life, the challenging parts, while still looking for the good pieces, because there's a lot of beauty out there. But so I was blessed with two callings in life. I knew in kindergarten I was going to be a cop and then, right before I retired from law enforcement, I was asked to go down to a metropolitan agency in Minnesota here and share my leadership journey and I thought, ah, what the heck? And brought my guitar down there and really played some music and shared some stories and it was powerful. And I called my wife in the parking lot afterwards and I was shaking and I said, honey, I just found my next thing. And so for about five years I've been traveling the country sharing a message and it's been beautiful.

Jerry Dean Lund: 3:24

Yeah, that is so awesome. I think it's very unique to bring a guitar into some of those well speaking situations and leadership talk.

Tim Eggbraaten: 3:35

Yeah, and it's especially with the room full of cops or firefighters. You know you get a lot of this, yeah, and they're not going to show any emotion and I was them for a long time, so I can get it. But yeah, music has that ability to kind of unite all of us and it breaks down a lot of barriers. And I was a one-man band for 27 years, so I was a sergeant working the night shift and then when I'd have nights off I would pick and grin and it was a really good opportunity because people wouldn't approach me because they had a stigma about cops or whatever. But with a guitar and music they'd be like you know I hate cops, but God, I love that song and that's a gorgeous guitar. What is that, you know? And so it really allowed for that commonplace. And in my presentations too, I don't do a lot of music, but probably three or four songs, and I don't expect them to remember that Tim Agerbrotten came and spoke with them, but I do like if the next time they hear Stand by Me or something, if I'm plugging in a song, then that's what I want them to trigger is like oh, that's right, he talked about unity and hanging together and teamwork. So it's powerful that way, and so is humor and emotional topics, and that's what I love about the podcast. You're exposing kind of that stuff that has been a buzzword for so many years the mental health and wellness and first responders, you know, ems and fire, and cops and nurses and even teachers and all those professions that are just fried, and so what you're doing is by lending a voice to that and making it more than just a buzzword and let's just talk about it. And these are real people that are experiencing challenging times, and what do they do to get up every morning, you know, and how do they show up, and that's just it. You never know who you're going to reach either, and so the format of a podcast is huge, and so thank you for doing that.

Jerry Dean Lund: 5:49

Yeah, yeah, it's great for me I get to ask my own questions and officially that's just very rewarding to me and you know I get to share people like your story, tim. You know to other people out there that you know that may resonate with something you say or another guest says, and it's just. I think it's very like. It's like motivational speaking right, you know you do touch different people and some people will not resonate with everything you say, but you know we're trying to reach the ones that it does.

Tim Eggbraaten: 6:22

Yeah, yeah. It's just that you never know, and at different times of people's lives do they maybe sitting in their squad car, or you know at the firehouse and watching this, or you know one of your podcasts, and at that time, at that moment, something resonates with them and that's what it's all about. And so again, thank you.

Jerry Dean Lund: 6:43

Yeah, I totally agree, tim. I wanted to touch on something that you said because I just yesterday spoke to a bunch of youth at a youth justice court conference in Utah and I thought it was interesting. You know, because we're talking. You're just talking about you know emotions and and you know officers or firefighters sitting at training and they know what their arms cross and not wanting to show any emotion. You know there was probably about 25% of the kids that were like that, but the others were super engaged, just having fun, right, just being kids. But then I think we get into these professions and we kind of lose some of that. I mean, we have that childlike behavior. Let's, you know. You know, let's not dismiss that you know at certain times and stuff like that. But in trainings it's like, yeah, let's engage, have a good time, that's what it's. That's what it's about Not sitting there with their hands. You know, you're just crossing that, showing no, no emotion. Why do you think we get to that point, or officers or firefighters get to that point in training where it just like seem to have the body language of close up, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are?

Tim Eggbraaten: 7:54

Right, it's raw, and that's what we're talking about is, you know, sometimes it could be anything. I mean, they have stuff going on at home. They may not want to be there, they were ordered by their boss to be there, or they have to get continuing education credits or whatever you know, and so they're in this room and they know that they have to be there for however long of a time, and so that's where it's important. As the presenter, it's part entertainment, you know, because you want to deliver that message in a way that's going to resonate with them, or at least get them to put their phone down so that they can engage. You know, like I said, and but yeah, it's. And then I think, like first responders, I think that we're wired a little differently, aren't we? I mean that's, we go into that line of work because we want to serve, we want to help people and we want to do things, and a big part of that is so long. In that industry, it was suck it up, buttercup, and it's part of the gig. What did you expect, you know, yeah, you're going to go to a car crash and yeah, you're going to see things you never expected to see. But what'd you expect and so somewhere in between that the suck it up buttercup and you know, and everything sunshine and lollipops, you know is is reality and but yeah, that, so when they're there and I think that's what helps to is like I can I tell them why? I was chief of police, you know, for five and a half years, and so that lends some credibility. Whether I was a crappy chief or a good chief is is irrelevant, I mean it, but so it lends some credibility. And I think, like in law enforcement or the fire services or first responders, if you get an outsider coming in Right away, there's that defense mechanism and we get a lot of that us versus them in all of our lives and and so that, well, he's that person. They don't know what they're talking about. Because even in like law enforcement, well, yeah, he was a small town chief, though he only had 14 cops, you know, and it's like what does that have to do with anything? And so there's that us versus them and it's easily dismissed. You know you can just say, well, yeah, you'll never understand what it's like to work so central LA, or you'll never know what it's like to work in Minneapolis, minnesota, or whatever you know, but the reality is is that we do have a lot of commonalities, regardless of the profession. Nurses are going through a lot, teachers are going through a lot, we all are going through a lot. And To have somebody come in and you get these expectations in your head and you're thinking, you know, like with me, when I show up with a guitar, I'm sure some of them are thinking he's gonna play freaking kumbaya, we're gonna hold hands and you know. And they're thinking I don't need this and but it's not like that. But it is challenging to break through that that wall.

Jerry Dean Lund: 10:48

Yeah, and I love that you do that through music. I always appreciated one thing when I've traveled, and that's other especially, I traveled and go into visit like firehouses or things like that. I went to New York once and you know I'm from a smaller town and you know I was talking to them and they're like hey, man, we do the same job. It's okay Like we do. It's like we do the same job. The frequency and some of the things we see are a little bit different, but we're really doing the same job day in and day out. So I really I really appreciated that perspective from them, because I spent a year as the chief too and it was it's still. It's still difficult, whether you have 6000 guys or 14 guys, that they're just. It's just difficult to be the chief. You know a lot to manage there.

Tim Eggbraaten: 11:36

Yeah, and that translates well, like when you're talking to other people, if you're talking to a bank manager, for example, or it translates really well because it's lonely at the top, no matter what the top of it is. You're at, you know, and it's just. It's a different set of rules and so it's. But we can speak that language To other people that are that are in leadership positions. I was a sergeant for, think, 13 or 14 years or something like that too, and that was you being that middle management. That's a different you and but it's that's. The whole thing is, the older we get, hopefully, the wiser we get, and we recognize that there are different perspectives and, and you know you're, when you're a rookie, whatever it is you're doing, if it's whatever your profession is, right away you're thinking now, they don't, they forgot what it was like. You know my manager's, they don't know what it's like. And then you get to be management. It's like, well, they didn't know, and that other people don't know what they're talking about. You know and I fell into that a lot where you sit back and you're saying, well, yeah, they don't understand what I'm going through. But the reality is, if we sit down and if we Like talk to other people, no matter what roles there. In that, we recognize that, yeah, there are a lot of similarities and we all, you know, end of the day, we want to be heard. We want people to understand that. You know, hey, I'm, I'm struggling personally, or I'm, I'm doing this. I may look like I've got it all together, but I'm struggling here and I need help and we all need to be acknowledged, and so I think once we start doing that and breaking down some of those barriers, that helps a lot, yeah.

Jerry Dean Lund: 13:20

Yeah, it is. It is Lonely at the top, but you know, like you saying, like you know, good communication can help with that. But I mean really, when you're at the top, I mean ultimately, I think you have the best intentions to Give whoever you're serving. You know the tools to do the best job that they can do. I mean, I I don't think you're up there. I mean for the most part, right, they're trying to do something. You know that's gonna take a toll on other people. You're really trying to do the do the best for them, but you know there's a third who's gonna love you, third who's gonna hate you, and there'll be a third in the middle.

Tim Eggbraaten: 13:58

Yeah, I love that. I use that all the time. Yeah, that's and that's goes in families too. I mean, yeah, if you have three kids, you know, yeah, one likes you, one doesn't really care for you and one's like I'm just here to show up and yeah, it's Very true.

Jerry Dean Lund: 14:15

Yeah, and that changes with your kids, right? That's one week. It's this one. One week it's the other one.

Tim Eggbraaten: 14:20

Yeah, now when they start cranking out kids, they like, oh, wait a minute, maybe the old man wasn't it half baked.

Jerry Dean Lund: 14:26

Yeah, tim, like you're during your career, you lost one year when you're friends during your career through from suicide. Is it okay if we talk about that?

Tim Eggbraaten: 14:38

Well, of course, that's a big part of my message is not only his name was Chad and it's a picture of him right there, but, yeah, one of my best friends and partners of 19 years, and Chad and his wife, chantel, were one of the first couples my wife and I met when we moved here and he got hired shortly after. I did the same department and you know we grew up through their ranks together and and laughed together and cried together and we, you know, we saw the crazy funny things and we saw the crazy Like you can't even make that up Stuff and, yeah, very close. But as our roles in the department changed through the years, our social lives kind of separated. But he was there for me when I got sworn in and their first child, their only daughter, haley they asked my wife and I to be godparents for Haley and so very close with that family and and that that whole brotherhood and sisterhood of law enforcement and fire services and so we we were definitely brothers and I got sworn in on in July of 2011 and then in May of 2012 it was Mother's Day, may 13th. Yeah, after a beautiful day of celebration, I was playing some music for some senior citizens and it was awesome. It was just a great day and I was getting messages from Chad's wife and I got a call from his father and you know where Chad is. And so it went from being a beautiful Sunday to celebrate moms all over the world and my own mom. It went from that to taking the wind out of my sails. And you know when law enforcement, when we're faced with somebody that dies by suicide or anybody, any family members you play that what if game. And I'd been a chief for 10 months, and so I was playing that hard and heavy like should I have seen something? Did he say something to me? Was it me? I mean all these things going through our heads. So I played the what if game, and probably the biggest thing that I took away from Chad's death was that night, that Mother's Day, I looked at my computer and I thought, ok, I got a policy and procedure manual. Wouldn't that be great to fire that up and find a checklist on what to do? And well, there's no checklist. And so I got on my phone and started calling other chiefs and command staff because one of the things I did really well at every stage of my career as a patrolman, as a canine handler, a sergeant investigator and chief of police. I'd go to conferences and when I was at these conferences I was really good at networking and I loved it and it was fun, just because it was like, hey, you know. Then throughout the year you'd call them up and say, hey, we're we ever dealt with this or what do you got going on there and just that whole sounding board piece. And so that night, that Mother's Day of May, may 13, 2012, I got on the horn and I was calling other chiefs and command staff from other departments and I'm pretty sure there's a crisis team. I have no idea how to activate it. I mean, do I shine a light up in the sky or how do we? You know what's my next step? And some of the some of the answers on a Sunday night were well, I don't know, chief, but we're going to, you know, let me do some checking and I'll find out. And so we got help that night and throughout the week and it was a crappy first year for this chief of police and but it was. There's no way we would have gotten through it. There's no way I would have gotten through it if we didn't have those people standing by us, and so that's you know. One of the things I stress is, when you go to a conference or when you're hanging out, no matter what field you're in is, you'll probably never remember who the speakers were or what they served for food or whatever, but make sure that you're connecting with people, because there's going to be people that have been there, done that, doing it for 30 years, and there's going to be brand new people that have no clue what they're getting into. And we're not designed to do this gig by ourselves. It's not how we were structured, and so we need to like lean heavily on these people and get to know them and offer support when you can, and make sure that you're reaching out to people like hey, one of the things I talk about is that later that fall, after Chad died, we had a conference of chiefs of police and our chaplain came up and said how are you doing Tim? And I'm like well, I'm great, how are you doing Dan? And we went back and forth like that and I wasn't great, I was horrible. And then he talked to me about, like, getting my head checked. And because somebody there, a friend of mine, recognized that I was having a rotten year. He had no clue what was going on in my head, but it wasn't good what was going on in my head. And he went to our chaplain and he said I think Tim's having a tough go of it. Would you mind checking in on him? And so he did and encouraged me to go get my head checked. And I'm like, well, we're the helpers, right, and it is so hard for us as the helpers it's like almost impossible. We can tell people, well, I think you could use some help, but for us doing it ourselves to swallow that pill and go in and say I'm having some images in my head like videos, 20 plus years of trauma shoved into this melon of mine, and I didn't talk to anybody about it. I never spoke to my wife about it and I felt that it was a sign of weakness to ask for help. And when I did, when I went and saw a psychologist, it was like freeing for me to ask him about PTSD. I'm like, doc, do I have PTSD? And he said I don't think. So I think maybe start talking about it to people. So I did and it was like one of the most freeing things. And I could see it. I still see it in people's eyes when I start talking about the chief of police walking into Sanford Clinic in Detroit Lakes, minnesota, and checking in and saying, hey, I need some help here. And in my mind I'm thinking everybody is going to think I'm nuts and oh look, he's got a gun. But that's not reality. And the reality was that we talked through it. The doc gave me some specific tasks to help deal with it and I implemented them and it was life-saving. It really was. And so that's my mission right now is to kind of knock down that stigma of you know what if somebody finds out? Well, what if you know? Yeah, it's scary. It's never fun to admit that. Well, I'm flawed here, I'm broken. It's not even flawed, it's just. But there's things going on in my head that aren't, I don't think are healthy, and that's it. It was a huge step to step forward and to say, oh, I need a lifeline here, and then to get that lifeline was unreal.

Jerry Dean Lund: 22:35

Yeah, that is a huge step, something I've noticed, and I even noticed it within myself at some point. I feel like, yeah, there is the stigma of you know, going getting help is weakness. But I also feel like and not just me, and I think I feel like I see it in others there's just a level of suffering as a first responder we're just willing to endure. I don't know why that's in like, feels like it's ingrained in us, or like because there is some, you know, physical suffering. Sometimes it happens, you know, with our jobs and stuff like that. But I'm not really sure why we feel like we have to suffer in silence and alone.

Tim Eggbraaten: 23:18

Yeah, that's you know. You approach any police officer or firefighter or EMS person and you say how you doing, and I will bet you 98% of them they'll. Their response will be, oh, living the dream, and it's like okay, that doesn't sound like you're living the dream and it's, but it's. It's almost like a prison sentence for a lot of people, like they'll tell you in years, months, weeks, days and hours and minutes how much they have left before they retire. And when I went at 50, I took a financial penalty for retiring at 50. And but I didn't care. I mean there, there is very little chance that I would be here today having this interview with you If I would have stayed in law enforcement till 55 or whatever right. It was suck in the life out of me. I was drinking like a fish. It was not a healthy thing and I had a great team, you know. So it wasn't even like I was surrounded by a bunch of knuckleheads, it was a great team and uh, so, but and I had to always told people for years, like, if you don't like the path you're on, change your path. And that's really easy to say, but it's a lot harder to implement because, like, well, what about life or health insurance? And what about what am I going to do? You know well, and a lot of responses would be like well, you can play guitar Like dude. Are you serious? You have no gifts other than you know? I mean, then you can't play guitar. You have, you know, some of the most highly trained people in whatever job you're in. If you've been at it for 25 years, you have a lot of special skill sets that that you can apply to something else, or you can, you know, realize that what you have is a really good thing going and instead of looking at it as a prison sentence like, oh, I've got 18 months left or whatever and you're checking off the days on your wall, you can look at it from a positive perspective. Like I do have a good job, you know it's. I do get paid well for what I do and if I, if I can handle some of the toxic stuff that's going on by finding some healthy outlets, whether it's music or hobbies or, you know, hiking and and beautiful Utah or whatever you know if there's stuff going on but the first thing is acknowledging that that, yeah, you know. Like, I do want to retire. What are my goals. You know I want to retire at whatever age, and how am I going to get there? Because if I stay in this crappy attitude and this funk, it's going to be miserable. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to infect everybody around me, and so there's a lot of choices that we can make and and so much of our lives are out of our control, right, I mean we. There's so much I can't control that. My neighbors more in their lawn right now, and it's you know but, but I can control my attitude about that. I can control 100% of the time. I control how I'm going to react, how I'm going to show up, and you know so, mindfulness, meditation and doing specific tasks that I talk about in my whole, like presentation, and I haven't invented any of them, of course, but they've been modeled for me for years and in the last five years I just began studying. Why do they work? How do they work? Do they work? And? And they do work? And how can we, how can we like be in our environment that we're in, whether it's work or wherever, and and look for the beauty that's out there? And we've still got to deal with the tragic stuff and the and the crappy stuff. I have never suggested that we put on the rose colored glasses or sweeping under the rug or anything like that. We need to tackle it, but we also need to remember that there's a lot of really good stuff out there.

Jerry Dean Lund: 28:57

Yeah, I think you're kind of on onto something I always say you know, a lot of times I can't control my my first thought, but I can definitely control my second thought and I think I've learned something as a first responder, like, especially, you know if you're going through something hard or not sleeping well, or there's something going on, you're you're reacting more than you're actually answering the question. So there's just a quick reaction, like you know you're saying live in the dream. You know that's kind of a reaction. That's not really a thoughtful answer, right.

Tim Eggbraaten: 29:30

Yeah, yeah, and it is. It's a. That's a very good point that we, and especially first responders, it's easy to say you know, look at it from other perspectives or whatever. But when there's, when you're in a dark alley at three o'clock in the morning responding to a domestic call and he got some clown that's coming at you with the sansons pockets, you know you don't have time to, you don't care if you was breastfed or not as a child and and what his growing up life was like and you don't care about any of that. You want to see his pants, and so I get that and, but then it's really again, it's easy to to talk about. Well, you got all this stuff going on at work and then when you go home, it's I just wipe it off on the door mat and then when you enter your house, well, baloney, it doesn't work that way, but it's, it's. So. How do we do that? How do we? Still? Because we need people to run into the burning building, we need people to run toward the gunfire, we need that. But how do we help those people that are doing that? And, honestly, it's got to come from the person that's experiencing that, because we can de stigmatize, we can talk about it to her blue in the face, and I think that's our job, right, you and me. That's our job right now is to keep planting those seeds, because, whether somebody's ready right now or not, they might be listening. If they've made it this far into the podcast, they're going to win the trip to Mexico, but it's so if, if there's seeds that have been planted, maybe it's. Maybe it's not relevant to them right now, but maybe in three months, if they experienced something or they have a conversation with a loved one or whatever, they're one of their partners and and then it maybe puts a little water on that seed and helps it to germinate, and and then through a series of events in our lives, then that's, you know, like mindfulness, for example. I'm sure I had heard about that Throughout my life, but I was 48 years old, chief of police, and I remember vividly when it, when that seed like exploded in my head and and it's huge right now as part of my life, part of my daily. You know, mindfulness and meditation, and because I had a police sergeant from Minneapolis, there was a psychologist that I trusted him because he was a cop and and he told a bunch of chiefs in our room, you know, if you feel comfortable, close your eyes and take a deep breath and we're all looking at each other like, yeah, this is fluffy, foo, foo and. But it was, it was a game changer, it really was.

Jerry Dean Lund: 32:10

Yeah, you gotta find those things that work for you. You know to change your. You know maybe just your outlook and downregulate. I think as first responders, we're so living on the spectrum of hyper vigilant that we struggle to downregulate. So that's why we have our coping mechanisms, you know, that are healthy or unhealthy. You know to downregulate. But I think one of the you know you touched on something you know like wiping your feet off the door. You know the door before you come into the house but like that transition is so important the one when you're leaving to go to work and the one when you're coming home. And for me that was something I've like I struggled with quite a bit, because I literally had like a 10 minute drive to work or or a five minute one, you know. So it had that time to like decompress. Sometimes I would just sit in the garage on the truck and just try to like relax and because you know you're, depending on where your shift changes, you're coming into a storm of kids trying to leave for school or coming home from school. And so I think that you know the we tend to leave out the family dynamics a lot in still in a lot of our trainings that were. You know that we talk about and do. There's still that gap that needs to be filled with with family.

Tim Eggbraaten: 33:28

Yeah, yeah, show me your hands. Kid like doesn't translate well when you're at home, you know, and, and Josh, put your hands up. You know it just doesn't, it shouldn't, and but it's. Yeah. It's really hard because we're the same person. You know, whether we're working or not, we're still that same person. And even like at work, when, when you're dealing with the public, not everything is like a risk, you know. But how do you know? You know, it's like I'm just going to put my seatbelt on right before I crash. You know, well, you don't, you don't have that luxury, you know, and so I get that. You know that whole kind of standoffersness, and I see it a lot today. You know we're all approach officers and I've been, you know, read out of the game, but I still consider them brothers and sisters. But I'll see them in uniform with their hands and their vasting and like this, and and I'll just say, brothers, permission to approach, and usually I'll give them like a challenge coin or something and just say, hey, thanks for what you're doing, especially if it's in the state of Minnesota. I'll say keep working, because it feeds my pension and you know, but it's? it's that they see this gray haired dude knocking up toward them like, oh great, you know we're going to hear, we're going to hear the next bad cop story. You know, like, what do you? What would you guys do if you know? And so I understand that. But somewhere in there there's that healthy mindset of you know like, not everybody's a bad person. You know, actually, very few people, even a bad people, are probably just screwing up at that point because of alcohol or drugs or whatever, and or stress and or all that. But yeah, it's, it's an interesting, challenging profession. All of these first responders in the military, you know, when they're deployed you have 40 days of just sheer boredom and then you know three hours or whatever of just hell and it's so what do you do with that? And you have to. All those days you're down time, you start to be prepared. So it's, it's a, it's unique, but it's important that we learn about ourselves journaling, that's a big. Thing that I've learned to like write down your thoughts, either at the end of the night or whatever, just to get them out, and and then write a book later. And so there's, and again there's, techniques that we can apply that are simple. They're not always easy, but we can apply them to our lives and to make it a little bit, those transitions, a little more easy, I guess.

Jerry Dean Lund: 36:20

Yeah, I was talking to a young man yesterday and I kind of identified some of the youth hort kids that I was talking to that were first responder kids and I went and talked to one of them wasn't engaging, you know, he was kind of sitting off the side and wasn't engaging. So I talked to him, you know in general like in the general session you know, talked about his dad and his mom, and then I then I came back to him after and I was like that must be hard, you know, to have your mom as a dispatcher, your dad as a high-whip patrolman, you know. And then the eyes like, yeah, they work different schedules and stuff like that. And he's like I got a job too. So like sometimes I don't even see my parents for a week. So I was like, wow, you must be a good kid If you don't see your parents for a week. They must have some trust in you. So I mean, yeah, our families take a take a toll and you know, the more that we can better ourselves, you know, the better our families will be off. And to go back to your journaling comment, I think the thing that's nice about journaling is is just getting that out right, sometimes you don't have to just say it. Maybe you can just write it down and they be like okay, I feel better, maybe I don't need to go say that to the person that I was going to say something to.

Tim Eggbraaten: 37:47

Yeah, yeah. So the yeah exactly when we're and there are studies that have been done on this when it goes from our brain through our body, out the hand, out the pen, you know, or if you're typing it for some reason the pen is even a little better than to actually write it out and then not only write out the things that were frustrating that day, like super frustrating, but then to make a point to write down, like three parts, that you were thankful for and that gratitude when you're, when you're writing down that gratitude, then that triggers. They actually compare, like those gratitude notes and letters, the effects that we get. They compare them to Prozac. I mean, the studies that are being done is powerful. And again, it's simple, not always easy, but like if you have a book or like by the side of the bed apps there's a lot of. I've tried probably a dozen of these gratitude apps. They're powerful and they set little alarms, you know. So it reminds you throughout the day hey, what are you thankful for? It's like when you stop and think about that, it triggers all the goods.

Jerry Dean Lund: 38:54

Right, you got to break your train of thought sometimes. You know with that and that's a good point you know that using the tools that are around us, you know to do that and with the, you know the pin is way more powerful than typing. It's just. I think the extra step of actual thinking about it when you're writing is huge.

Tim Eggbraaten: 39:16

I think so, yeah, and again, maybe nobody will get it you know nobody will ever see it, and but it's, it's your way to release it. One of the things I talk about is writing a letter of gratitude to somebody that inspires you, and so and that's a really hard thing, I think, especially for men to, you know, write like hey, you inspire me and so, like the first few letters that I did, or like dude rock on man, you know, and. But then when you, when you practice that and you get better at it and you write down, and so I encourage people to maybe start with a list of six people that have inspired you and commit to a letter a week for six weeks and just see what that does. And I've had people contact me afterwards and say, you know, I wrote a letter to my mother who died 10 years ago, and so obviously nobody's going to read that letter, but just the act of of writing down, hey, mom, I just wanted to write you this note because, you know, fill in the blanks and it's powerful. I get emotionally even, just like telling you this, and so it just it brings out all those emotions and you can. The beauty of it is you can do it anywhere, anytime, it's. There's no like financial investment, it's, it's, it's free, you know, and you just do it and and. But then you make a habit out of that and yeah, I mean, and you will see improvements. And what's his name? Oh, kevin Gilmartin, in that book Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement, and he talks about like the zombies and and how you, when you get home, especially if you're working shift work and you've got a lot on your mind, and you sit on the couch and you're just flipping through the channels mindlessly I was a poster child for all of that Because I'm not going to tell my wife or my kids I mean, they were young I'm not going to tell them what daddy did at work today because I didn't want to do it. But I certainly don't want to tell anybody else about it. But it needs to go somewhere.

Jerry Dean Lund: 41:30

Yeah, definitely, definitely needs to go somewhere because we don't want to stuff it down. Right, that's what we're really good at is stuffing it down. And sometimes stuffing it down is something that you have to do. If you're at a busy department, you have to stuff it down, but at some point, in some form, some manner, you have to get rid of that. I think you know talking about therapy and I would encourage, even as someone young, getting into the first responder world. Just set up the routine A lot of departments have free stuff and set up the routine of going and then maybe well, I don't think, maybe I would almost bet you will have a way better career by doing that than stuffing it down for so many years and then trying to unravel it, because therapy can help with a lot of things, a lot of traumas and stuff like that. But you've learned a lot of bad habits during those times and so you can fix some of the trauma. But you got to personally, you got to work on the habits.

Tim Eggbraaten: 42:38

Right, yeah, and the time not to do that is like call the chief when you're drunk and you're frustrated, and then it comes out there. That's usually never good, but you know. So that's just F2E, if, when you decide, you make that choice, how you're going to handle it in a healthy, productive way, and then it won't boil over hopefully not boil over, and that's what happened to me in 2012, when it was all boiling over in my head and I did not have healthy outlets. You know, music has always been super healthy in a positive way. I mean, if I'm in a crappy mood or a great mood, I mean, house of the Rising Sun is just there, no matter what, but it's whether it's listening to music or playing it or whatever. I always have a song going through my head and that's a good thing, but it's. So how do you find those outlets that are healthy? And you know, and again, there's a million tactics out there. Pick one or two or three and develop those skills, because it is, you know we work so hard on clearing a house. Or you know, firefighters on saving those basements, yeah, yeah, and flooding them.

Jerry Dean Lund: 44:00

You just get to the point where we want and.

Tim Eggbraaten: 44:04

But it's how do we work on extrication? And we're working on all these things and we train and we're very serious on it, but then we forget to train on how are we dumping this or not even dumping it, but like dealing with it, acknowledging it? One of the things that I did for years was I would see like images of horrible things that I'd experienced and they'd be in color, like videos, and I would try to suppress that, stuff it down, like you said. And so I found through this psychologist. He said well, maybe talk about some of these things, don't acknowledge them, you know, just don't stuff them down. And that was a complete game changer to acknowledge them. They're in the past, they're not going to hurt you anymore. But it's like what was the feeling? And you know that whole thing and some of it, I think. You know we think, well, it sounds fluffy or it sounds. I'm not into that kind of stuff, but I think that's another defense mechanism for us to it's mine, it's my trauma, I want to hang on to it and well, bull crap, you know I'm in and it's not like dumping it on the same person every time. But so that's where the journaling comes in, huge.

Jerry Dean Lund: 45:23

Yeah, yeah, I can see some of it. I mean, you have to understand, the human body has both male and female energy, like there's, it's just in you, that's just part of your makeup. So some of these things that may sound less masculine or more masculine depend on the listener. I mean that they work. They work like they get in touch with those different sides that you need to be in touch with. You need that balance right. That's where the whole ying and yang, symbols and things that come from the energy, balancing your energy out.

Tim Eggbraaten: 45:58

Yeah, yeah. For most of my life I didn't cry. I wasn't against it. I definitely don't think it's a sign of weakness, I just didn't cry. I mean now, at this stage of life, good Lord, like Ted Lasso Are you kidding me, ted Lasso? No, yeah, yeah, it's just like in my life sometimes looks at me like are you okay, you know, but it's. But I'm, I'm and again, I wasn't against it before, I wasn't like I'm a tough, I'm a, I'm a man dang it, you know, or I'm a cop, or I'm a chief, or I'm a dad, whatever it is. It wasn't that, it was just for whatever reason, it wasn't even like taught to me explicitly, but it just wasn't something I did and I had emotions. I have emotions, but now I'm way better at just like recognizing that that's all it is. They're just emotions and we're going to have those good, bad and otherwise, and that's natural. If you don't have emotions, if you don't think about the call you handled last night, that was like one of those scenes that looked like a bad movie, like they had no budget, you know, and and because it's it it some of those things that that we experienced, it's like you can't even make that crap up, you know, and here you are and you have to deal with it, because you just go through the motions and then afterwards you think and that was weird, you know, and you don't. If you talk to your partners or talk to the people you're working with, usually it's in the form of a joke or something that, taken out of context, would be horrible. It sounds ridiculous, but I mean, in context, that's how we deal with it. But there's in addition to that, you know, talking with your partners and instead of or in addition to making the jokes about it, like acknowledging that man that was messed up, that was, you know how you doing that was. That was a tough one. You, you were the one that did CPR on that baby. Are you doing? Okay, you know, I was just there helping in it. I was messed up, you know. And, however, making those conversations normal and part of the, just part of the deal, so you're not looked at like, oh, are you, are you a sissy or whatever. You know, I'm not honest and that's why I think that, as we're evolving as cultures and fire and EMS and law enforcement and military, to get those other perspectives in there, get women in those positions of leadership. And because not everything's, we need those other perspectives, and within ourselves and within, from outside to critical.

Jerry Dean Lund: 48:40

Yeah, I think something that I'm discovering in my teaching and speaking and podcasting is like the emotional intelligence. I feel like we and I asked these kids yesterday. I said do you guys understand your emotions? Has anybody taught you any like any emotional intelligence? And like raise your hand if they have. And like pretty much nobody out of hundreds and some on kids raise their hand.

Tim Eggbraaten: 49:11

How old were they?

Jerry Dean Lund: 49:12

They were 12 to 17.

Tim Eggbraaten: 49:14

Oh yeah.

Jerry Dean Lund: 49:17

So I think that's something as parents we need to like work on. You know, emotional intelligence, because a lot of people, you know kids, suffer from anxiety and I'm like, well, if you look at sports psychology and you fall, a lot of pro athletes and sports psychologists is like a lot of athletes turn that into excitement, not necessarily anxiety. They feel something very similar to what you're feeling, but they're turning it to excitement. You know it's people. Sometimes they do things and people are worried, or you're scared about that or you're nervous. I'm like I'm not, because I have never done it before, so I don't know what to expect. But that's fine that I I embrace that feeling instead of like try to fight that feeling.

Tim Eggbraaten: 50:01

Yeah, and then when we recognize to that not everything's about us, you know, and that releases a lot of that anxiety. When I'm speaking in like front of a thousand people, people say how do you get nervous? And I used to get nervous years ago, like when I would sing in front of people. I got a funeral or a wedding and and I'm there with my guitar and and everybody's like staring at me and look at me. I used to get like nervous, like what if I goof up? When I was young and and then it dawned on me I was singing for a 16 year old, beautiful young lady's funeral and I thought you idiot, you know, it has nothing to do with me. And here I am doing something I love to do that can possibly bring in, you know, a small ray of light into this horribly dark day that I can't even imagine for this family. You know, and I'm worried about me goofing up, you know. And so when you, when the things that are causing you anxiety, if you look at it and like, shape it and look at that anxiety, a lot of times it's you're anxious because you're afraid of like, am I going to goof up? Or whatever. And then when you look at it, but it has nothing to do with you, you know it's what am I doing? What am I bringing to this situation that that is going to help other people? And and when you do it that way, you know I honestly I don't get nervous, hardly at all. I get. I'm prepared not to help you with you prepare and you learn and you, you practice and you just get after it. But yeah, it's, we get caught up in our own heads that I can't do that, I'm not good enough, I don't belong here that whole imposter syndrome to and all of that. But recognizing that what we can do for other people, that's part of that gratitude to. When we're writing somebody a letter, we're focusing on them and not on us, and that like releases all these beautiful chemicals.

Jerry Dean Lund: 52:06

Yeah, yeah, tim, what else are you up to? Are you going out and speaking some more like working people find you and follow you and see what's going on with you.

Tim Eggbraaten: 52:16

Yeah, I do all the well most of the social media things. I haven't figured out TikTok yet. I don't do much with Twitter, but like on Facebook and LinkedIn is kind of my go to thing, and off duty chief is most of my stuff, my handles, my website is off duty chiefcom, and yeah, it's so. I still perform as a one man band and I love doing that. I'll do it till I can't, but I'm scaling that back quite a bit. I was while I was chief of police, I was doing like 130 shows a year. It was, it was, but I love it. I mean, it's, it's, it's a drug for me and that's, that's my go to thing, and so I'll do that till I can't. But then, speaking, I'm really pouring a lot of energy into that, because conversations like this and right now I see you, but I also see the people that are going to be listening to this and watching this and so it's important to me, it's a mission. Like I said, I've had two callings in life law enforcement and and sharing this message now. And so, and I love traveling, I love airports. I spent the entire day yesterday in the Minneapolis St Paul airport, like literally the entire day, and I think I went 36 hours without maybe like 45 minutes of sleep on an uncomfortable chair, but I love it. I love airplanes and Ubers and hotel rooms and the whole the whole shebang. I love traveling and going down south and wherever it is. I was in your beautiful state, moab, utah, speaking with emergency managers and what I'm finding is my target audience is basically anybody with a pulse. It it is. I tried to narrow it down like law enforcement. Well, that's they need. They need the message, fire service, they need the message and all first responders. But then teachers and nurses and emergency managers and doctors and accountants that are in the back room that they're raising their hand like does anybody even know I'm here? And so I love all the different associations, and there's associations I never even heard of before, but yeah, so that's, that's my focus right now. It's my passion and my wife and I are empty nesters and so that and we have two grandkids and, and you know, going and snuggling on them and but it's you know. So when people ask me how you doing, tim, I do say I'm living, but it's like, seriously, I am living the freaking green. And it's no sarcasm meant at all, it's just it's a beautiful thing. And when I found your podcast and started doing my research, you know, and I was like, oh, this guy is making a difference, I mean so thank you for doing that, whether you have and hopefully you're not into analytics too much, not- too much, you know good. I mean, you want to know, obviously, get your finger on the pulse, but whether it's one person, or you know, or Joe Rogan type numbers, that, whatever you think, just know that you're making a difference. And so when I heard about you, started doing my research, started watching some of your prior episodes. I'm like man, this dude, kudos to you. Keep it up, good job.

Jerry Dean Lund: 55:40

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, five and a half years now, over a hundred and something episodes, you know, and they've all been really something special to me. You know, I do it because I love it. I don't do it because any other, any other real reason to do it is just you know I love to do it. I love to in engage with people and be able to ask, you know, questions to get them to share their story, so someone else can, you know, get value out of that. That's what I'm really passionate about.

Tim Eggbraaten: 56:13

Yeah, and it shows so good job.

Jerry Dean Lund: 56:16

Well, thanks, Tim. Appreciate you being on the podcast today.

Tim Eggbraaten: 56:19

Thank you, it was an honor, and thank you to all the listeners out there and, whatever you're going through, make sure you share this and because you just don't know who's going to need to hear it today.

Jerry Dean Lund: 56:31

So that's true. I mean, sharing an episode is very huge because it's it's powerful on how like it goes out to the world and when people share, like and read and review it, it just pushes things up into people's newsfeed that may have not known about it and they find an episode that resonates with them and, you know, can maybe get them start on a path to changing to be some better version of themselves.

Tim Eggbraaten: 56:58

Yeah, make sure you smash the subscribe button too.

Jerry Dean Lund: 57:02

That's right. That's what I'm talking about Permanology. Thank you so much. All right, brother.

Tim Eggbraaten: 57:07

Thank you.