He looked fine, but he was falling apart.

In this episode of The Lonely Chapter Podcast, Sam speaks with Jason Kubiak, a firefighter, former professional MMA fighter, father and co-founder of Unified Against Violence CIC.

Jason opens up about the period of his life where everything started to collapse around him: divorce, operational trauma, not seeing his children, homelessness, self-medication, isolation and the painful realisation that he did not understand what was happening in his own mind. From the outside, he may have looked capable, disciplined and strong, but privately he was struggling to survive.

This conversation explores men’s mental health, firefighter trauma, suicide prevention, emotional isolation, the pressure to be strong, fatherhood, recovery, routine, discipline, asking for help, and the importance of having people who do more than simply say, “let me know if you need anything.”

Jason also shares how his experiences shaped the way he now supports others, including his work with Unified Against Violence CIC, a project focused on youth violence, knife crime prevention, public access bleed kits, defibrillators, community safety and giving young people access to belonging, mentorship, sport and support before pain becomes violence.

Find Jason on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/jaykube0067/

Find Unified Against Violence CIC on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/unified_against_violence/

Before things reached crisis point for you, what were you carrying that the people around you wouldn't have seen?

Oh God, that's a great question. When I originally got poorly.

I was going through a divorce, obviously, operational trauma with work, not seeing my children. So there wasn't, wasn't one particular thing I could put my finger on.

But all I know is that everything was falling down around me and I couldn't quite gauge why or what was happening. And obviously taking, coming back out from that now and looking in and I can understand what was wrong.

And that was probably one of the reasons I was so difficult to live with as well, because I wasn't being a very good husband, wasn't being a very good father and essentially I ended up homeless to, to a degree. But yeah, there wasn't one thing that I was carrying. It was a combination of lots of things.

You know, you think you can, When I was younger, you're almost bulletproof, right. You think you can take most things, you know, broken bones, a broken bone, you heal. But I didn't understand what was going on.

I really, I really didn't. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. And so essentially I had quite a long period of time off of work.

But there's, there's way more to the story kind of with that, but understanding of what was going on, that moment in time when I, when I, I didn't know. Yeah, you know, it was really difficult.

It often takes that zooming out from now, looking back on it to like actually understand what was going on. And like you say there's multiple things you're carrying, it's very often not one big thing. It's like these little things that will add up.

Was there a point where you suddenly noticed, what was that tipping point for you where you noticed that things weren't okay?

Oh, that's a very good question too. I wouldn't say there was one tipping point as such.

It was a progressive, it was a progressive thing that happened over a period of time because there was a combination of events really which led me to a point in my life where I was essentially homeless, I was sofa surfing and everything. I was self medicating myself to get my, through the Day. So I wasn't at work. I think I was off work for close to a year before I come back.

No tipping point, but that gradual thing of just slowly breaking you down as an ad, not understanding what's going on, not seeing your children, not being with your tribe of people at work, being distant from them people. Then you've been away for such a long time, you get forgotten about. It's almost like.

And that analogy would be the movie the beach, you know, where the kid gets bitten by the shark and then they take him away from the group. It's all of a sudden you get taken away and all of that interaction and nobody's there for you. So you do feel really super isolated.

Yeah, that's. Yes, that word isolated, I suppose resonated with a lot of people have felt that way previously. Was there anything like looking back now?

You obviously say that you can, you can recognize things differently. Are there things you look back on and either you or people who are around you at the time now say that was a sign that I didn't spot.

Yeah, I think my family, certainly my mum, she, she recognizes now because obviously I still have them moments even now and she can recognize, recognize old me and knew me when they're kind of coming in. So she's very good at that. My wife. She understands my triggers and she gets it.

Yeah, there's definitely people which have pulled me to one side and said, you know, look, you're going down that path again. Yeah, but I recognize that way more myself. I'm way more self aware in that now and I know how to take a breath, how to step back.

I have a very, how can you put it?

Like a very strict regime that I have on my day to day really when I get up in the morning, if I don't implement that, it can have a real effect on the rest of my day which, which can, can, can knock me out a little bit. But yeah, people were putting me to one side but, but I'd gone too far before that help had been recognized.

You know, I was in too far and in too deep into, into my, my own crisis before Anyone could really have helped me out of it other than a chain of events really, which I would still to this day will say saved my life. I wouldn't be if it wasn't for that.

You said in there that you now recognize your triggers more and you're better at seeing when things might be going that way. What are some of the triggers for you personally that you spot in yourself?

Well, I noticed now like just my triggers I can hear short tempered. That's quite, is quite an obvious one. I get very in my own head.

I can be very bad and talk to myself very badly in my own, in my own brain if you like. And when I know I'm starting to do that.

So if I miss part of my routine gym work or I miss what I'm doing in the morning kind of that grounding because currently at the moment I get up in the morning super early, I like to have my rescue breaths go through my routine that I do in the morning.

If I don't get that in enough starting them, I start being quite nasty to myself in my brain and that tends to come out with just being upset with everybody and everything. Yeah, my resilience really starts to come down even as little as a dog barking just out the blue can switch you sometimes, you know.

So yeah, it's, it's understanding and recognizing that in myself now that's, that's my early kind of triggers when I'm like right, okay, we've got, got something going on here. Yeah, I'm aware of it. Can I sort of deal with it right now?

Maybe now's not the right time, but it's having that acceptance and awareness of what's going on. So I'm aware that something's going on but I can't quite deal or be acceptance of it.

But I will deal with it at some point and kind of like you'll know yourself.

We sometimes we don't have the, the chance to, to, to stop and, and be acceptance of what's going on in our own head essentially especially with what we do, you know, then four days off is sometimes when you're with your family, your wife, your friends, you've, you're not. That isn't the time to be acceptance of what's in your brain. You try to switch off and then it just mounts up, builds up, builds up.

So it's really got to be for myself. I have to be really, really on it early on.

Otherwise that layering through a period of time can then lead to me to building up to the Burnout, sort of stage and phase of being a firefighter.

Yeah. How do you ensure that you make sure that you get that time?

So you say, obviously when you're on shift, you're so busy doing stuff anyway, so you might move on relatively quickly with everyone else.

If other people around you aren't responding and aren't speaking too much about it, then maybe you go, maybe it's just like, I'll leave it and everyone's okay. But then you get home and it's still on your mind a bit. But you're then with your family trying to. Your family stuff.

Where do you find the time to reflect on those sort of things?

Incident wise, it feels like the only time I do is, is. Is daft o' clock in the morning. So I'm usually up super, super early, anywhere between sort of 4, 30, 5, 30 in the morning. And that's my moment for.

That's my moment for my grounding and reflection. I get up, switch the lights on, sit at the coffee table, sit at the dining room table, sit there and just sit with my thoughts.

And I just spend some time just letting myself process it, let out what's got to come out and just kind of just try and understand what's going on. And that's, that's the period which sets me up for the day. Or essentially that driving to work is a. Is a good period for me as well.

I find myself now as I'm getting older, music can be too distracting in a car. And where it's. It's one day I need the noise, the next day you need the silence and the calm. Brain's very peculiar thing.

Right?

Yeah.

A lot of people can't sit in silence. Yeah.

So doing that, being able to do that is a big thing because a lot of people will drive with a podcast or music and the thought of driving in silence is just absurd to them. But if you can, and that's your time to prefer, that's brilliant.

Yeah. I find that tremendously powerful. Being able to sit with it with your own brain.

Yeah. Most people don't just. You've got your phone on you 247 that's connected to the Internet. Like.

Yeah.

You don't need to sit with yourself if that's there.

100 I can't remember listening to a podcast a long while ago and I can't remember. I think it might have been David Goggins is like, you can run with headphones in.

And I try running without headphones in and being in your own brain and listen to what your brain's telling you.

Yeah.

What you can or you can't do. Yeah, that's very, very, very true.

Yeah, true. To be fair. Yeah. Like running is one of the only times I probably don't have noise in my ear.

If I'm, if I'm in the gym, I've got a podcast or music or driving. Same thing. Yeah. But running is one where I, I don't know why, but I just. Yeah, I just tend to not run with anything.

Yeah, it's my own thoughts that's good for anyone listening. Obviously you slightly mentioned some of your story, but can you take us through your story?

Yeah, sort of what obviously caused it in the first place and also the chain of events you mentioned that you said saved your life.

One of the things I would say is working in a station where you grew up, there's a chances that you will come across things or people in incidents that you may have known or be set first or second, third party to friend groups and stuff. So I experienced a little bit of that, which was difficult. Um, and it was just.

It all come together really in that moment and I just started breaking down. I had a, during that part, the period of the divorce, I was back at my mom and dad's, my grown man.

And you know, having to go back to your parents is quite difficult financially. Really struggling and it was just a really difficult period of time.

It was all building up into one and, and that's where it all kind of, it started to really snowball from, from them. Really had a huge argument with my family and then essentially I ended up pretty much homeless.

So I was sofa surfing for a fair bit at a time, ended up staying in tents, borrowing someone's camper van, staying in campervan. I was in a shed with a friend of mine.

I stayed in a shed for a while and yeah, it was just homeless, not seeing my family, not looking after myself, not looking after my. And you know, all the things that we should be doing or I felt I should be doing as a man, providing for all them people.

And then it got really bad to the point where I was pretty much self medicating myself really to get through every day that would sleep most of the day and I would do anything to do that, to be able to sleep. And it was a really odd chain of events. A guy called Terry Ridgely who was an ADO in Buckinghamshire, fire and Rescue service.

And he'd retired, but he was kind of like, I'd say my link officer. So he's head of our benevolent fund.

Right.

And he was incredibly incredible. I. And I don't even know whether he's still on this planet. I think he may have passed away. Bless, bless him.

But he kept reaching out week after week, week after week. He's like, right, okay, let's, let's see what we can do.

So he took me to a financial advisor to start with because I wasn't living, I was surviving essentially.

And I'd gone to a financial advisor like, right, okay, look, pay your priority debts, pay the mortgage, pay your council tax, these kind of things, anything else, credit cards, debts, all that sort of stuff, just tell the companies that you can't afford, you can't afford to pay it. So that. Because essentially we needed to find, I needed to have somewhere to live.

Yeah.

So we did that and I was staying at that time, at that moment in time, I was sleeping on her a sofa in a tattoo studio where I was doing a little bit of work. And I remember pulling up in a car park, sorry, mate. And I just was kind of lost and nowhere to. To go or didn't know what to do.

And I just looked across and there was a family law solicitors on the other side of the car park. And so I've got out the car, just knocked on the door, just wanted some help. So ladies answered the door.

She's like, yeah, I'm just in tears, just uncontrollable. She's like, sit down. Typical cup of tea, sugar biscuit.

Started just talking to me like nobody had done through that period of that, that time, actually trying to find out what was going on. Are you okay? I'm like, no, I'm not seeing my children. I see that you do like a free sort of 30 minute consultation.

And so she, she, we, we spoke for hours, it felt like hours. And, and in a really bizarre turn of events, she was said, so what?

When I say a bizarre turn of events as we're going through naturally organically, she says, what do you do for a living, Jason? I was on my firefighter. She's like, I had a, we had a fire at my home in Parsnam and you guys saved my horses from the stables, etc.

And I was like, geez, I was at that incident. And she goes, well, I've been meaning to give thanks to Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service. You're here for a reason today.

So I'm going to represent you for Free with your family law stuff. So she offered to represent me for free from that day forward. And that was, yeah, just like mind boggling to me there and then.

So that was a, that was a slight relief, but it didn't take everything away. I was still in a really bad position. I had a really bad mom moment where I, I didn't really want to be here.

I say it was it, was it an attempt of my own life? Probably not. Was it misadvent, misadventure, more lightly?

But I, I took too much of something and, and eventually almost put myself into respiratory arrest and I was found and that was a real wake up call for me.

Then after that, um, in that period, then the fire brigade, obviously they started getting involved, started supporting me a little bit with, with, with counseling, et cetera. And then they were like, we need you to go to the doctor. So doctor, first thing the doctor says is, we're going to, we're going to medicate you.

You need to start taking some medication. And that, that, that chain of events there was like, wow.

And I'm reading this, I can remember reading the, the medications, Citalopram I think it was, take however many tablets a day. Then I start looking at the, the kind of like the side effects and stuff and how long it will take to be in your system.

And I'm thinking that was a wake up call was so profound that I was like, well, hold on a minute. Why am I feeling that the way I'm feeling?

You know, I'm pretty much homeless, I'm not seeing my children and no doing other than any, anybody but no, nobody is doing other than myself. And that kind of really gave me the driving force to start sorting things out. That and the help of Terry Ridgeley.

He was, he was incredibly, absolutely incredible. So he was like, Jace, we need to find you, we need to find a place to live. And at that moment in time I still had, I was skydiving.

So I had a little tribe of people around me work. I was non existent. All the guys that I worked with, the watch just left me to my own devices pretty much essentially.

That's how it felt from my memory that I can remember. But I had a really good tribe of people around me. Long story short, found a place to live on the airfield.

They had these old pig sheds that they converted into like little bed sits and one popped up to rent. And that's how I met my current wife actually. And it was, it was, I think it was about 900 pound deposit. Had to put down And I didn't have that.

So I phoned Terry, I said, Terry, look, I found a, found place to live, but I haven't got the deposit for it. He's like, Joe stopped my, I'll sort that out. I don't know where that money come from. But he turned up the following day with £900.

We put £900 deposit down and then that was it. I wasn't homeless. I had a, I had a bed sit, essentially nothing in it, but I had a bed sit shelter.

So I started getting better, I started to feel better, was doing the right things, went back to work, but went to work too early, still wasn't well enough to see my children on the level that I wanted to or should do. Again, my doing, nobody else's. And then I went into work one day on what was an empty bed set.

I come back to and it had been fully kitted out my powers at the airfield. So, yeah, I've walked through the door.

What went to, from an empty little bedsit room to having a sofa, a tv, cutlery, condiments, a bed, a mattress, duvet, covers everything. It was just, that was, that was it. And then slowly I started to pull, everything started to come back into place.

I never, for me, I didn't end up medicating myself.

I didn't opt on that route, but it was, yeah, it was, it was very challenging and I think I made it more difficult myself because not seeking for that help or that early intervention from the, from the get go or saying I needed something because I did mma, as you know, I was a professional fighter for a short period of time and mentally I'm like, yeah, I can, you know, I've got this. I just bite down and I'll swing for the fences. It was, keep swinging and I'm going to come out the other side. But it's completely different.

That mental fortitude for that kind of battle to the battle I was going through where I didn't have control is where I really let myself down.

And I'd like to think the lessons that I've learned from that maze has made me a tremendously better person and how I recognize that in other people as well, you know, now. So I can, I can support people better, I think. And obviously every day, every day has its challenges and it is still, it still lingers there for me.

And I have my quiet days and I need my solitude. I need to be on my own sometimes. I need people around me sometimes.

I think that's part of what's not Discussed a lot in a fire service is, you know, that tribe having that group of people around you constantly when that's taken away. That's one of the big things that I'm concerned about when I come to retire.

Yeah.

Because essentially now I've got all of these. My watch, all of these people, yourself, everyone that you're wrapped around. And when you go away, it doesn't take long to get forgotten.

So that next chapter is something which is coming pretty quickly, but that was pretty much kind of my story. Um, yeah. Very, very difficult.

Yeah. Thank you for telling it.

No, you're welcome. Thank you for listening.

What was it like, that moment when you walked, you spoke about the importance of the tribe and stuff like that. When you walked back through the doors of your bedsit after that day at work and you saw it kitted out knowing that they'd done that for you?

Oh, yeah.

You couldn't even describe the emotions that. The closest that would have ever come.

Anywhere remotely to us when the.

The birth of my. My daughter, that. That's how down I was. You know, you survived to be surviving in a.

In a lifestyle where you should be living or have the ability to live to. To get back and think that you, You, You. You've got nothing to give. But then there's some people out there that have done that for you. It just.

It completely blew my. Completely blew my mind.

Yeah.

Completely blew my mind.

Sometimes you need, like, an action to sort of show you as well, because I think a lot of the time people can support you and listen to you and you can tell me about what you're experiencing, but sometimes you just need a little. A little bit of help as well. And it's so.

It's something you never really ask for in that position because it's like you say, the firefighting, the fighting, it's potentially. It's like a pride thing. It's a. I can deal with this. I can get through this.

But for someone from the outside and the conversations I had before on this podcast around, like, grief, it's slightly different, but it also. In that moment, people often say, if there's anything I can do, let me know. It's like, that's a. That's like almost more of a burden. Yeah.

Whereas if they just come round, cook your dinner for the week, put it in, Tupperware in the fridge, just an action like that. And I mean, that's a massive action from. Yeah, from the watch to come down and sort of care out your place. But it shows you in that moment. Yeah.

That people care. Yeah. That's lovely. Yeah. Yeah, it was.

It was mind blowing. And that's essentially. That's. And that's how I met my wife. So you go back to just someone making you food.

That's just how our relationship developed with my. With my wife, you know, she was in the flat below and I was in the upstairs flat, and it was. Created a really wonderful friendship.

I got to the point eventually where it's like, what's gonna happen here? Is he gonna stay friends? Or could it be something really special? Don't take that chance. And obviously we did.

And, yeah, things just started to look up. And then you get Tommy and children again, because they were only little then, you know, and they needed me, and I weren't there for them.

And that's really hard to take considering what I was doing to myself as well. And that still hurts sometimes when I think about that. But I've got a fantastic relationship with both my daughters, which is really cool.

Yeah, really cool.

When you look back, do you think there was an element of it because you were a firefighter, because you're a fighter father? These things that you're providing for people, you're serving people, Is there part of you that thinks that made it harder to reach out for help?

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, definitely. Ego, pride, you know, you're there for everybody else, and then almost a little bit of resentment and anger that people weren't doing.

What, have an expectation of people to do something and them not doing it for you.

Yeah.

You know, in a real weird kind of way. And being. Yeah, being resentful over people, like, how are you not recognizing when. Really, that's not down to, you know, that's not down to them.

That's down to me. And so, yeah, definitely become resentful. And that ego and the pride thing, because essentially we're here, almost there to serve people.

My ego was bigger than what it probably should be because I was competing. Mixed martial arts, all that kind of things. And definitely. Yeah, definitely had an impact, for sure.

And one other thing you said during.

During the story you were talking about when you went and they suggested you take medication, and it sort of fit that switch in your mind of, okay, I'm feeling this way because. And I spoke to James Elliot on this podcast before about the idea that we very often diagnose the symptom, not the problem. Yeah.

So we will label someone as depressed or anxious or whatever it is and medicate that without taking that step back to go, okay, why is this person feeling this way. And in your case it was a totally justified way of responding to like what was a very difficult situation. Yeah.

And I think a lot of the time we don't necessarily just take that extra step back to look at that.

Yeah, it was, it was. Don't get me wrong, I know people which it's really supported and it's been exactly what they needed to get over that hill.

So I'm not by any way shape or form saying that that's what work for me.

Yeah, yeah.

And that how my brain is wired. It's like, right, hold on. There's a reason that I'm feeling this way.

If it was, you know, if I was, if I weren't going through everything like that and I was feeling the way that I was feeling and that's a different story altogether.

But I was able to sort of break that down compartmentalize and concentrate on one thing at a time and accidentally that, that, that accidentally fell together, you know, without me even really thinking about it. And it's that old saying and I'll stick by it. People come into your life for a season, a reason or a life. Right.

And there's a scenario of events which happen, which someone was looking down at me at that moment in time for that period.

Are you a religious person or anything? Like does that. How do you look at that chain of events? That seems so. Almost too coincidental.

Yeah, it's bizarre. And I, so I went, I'm. I have, I have faith in something now. I believe that there's something out there. There's something.

We're more than just what we are, you know, down to our core with, with, with our energy and everything. So there's definitely something, something out there and I'm a great believer in that.

And you know, we see stuff as you know, on a day to day basis where wrong place, wrong time, your number's up, you know, and it, and whoever or whatever it may be didn't had a different path for me throughout that period of time. And it's. Does it change me massively as a person? Yeah, for sure. But yeah, not. I believe I have faith. Faith in humanity and faith in us. Really.

That's good. Tell me a little bit about your fighting. You said you're a professional fighter for.

Yeah, for a period of time. I. God, I can't. I forget how many times, how many times I competed now, but maybe eight or nine times professionally.

I never lost as a pro, which was pretty cool. But this was back a long time ago, before it got. Before it got really cool and mainstream.

But.

But yeah. Do you know, I boxed from a young age and in a roundabout way, you know, you're always seeking for. You're always seeking for validation.

So I think the reason I went down and it's a whole new other story and is from my dad, to get validation from my dad, really. I mean, when I boxed as a, when I boxed when I was younger, did I like it? And I hate every single moment of it.

And then eventually from my own going, I enjoyed it. One day I got introduced to bjj, took to it like a doctor Water, really like the ground aspect of the, the sport.

And then the next thing I know I'm in a. Yeah, I'm in a. An octagon punched in the head and I. And like most things in my life, or if, if you're built like me, you. I get.

Become obsessed with stuff pretty quickly, but in the same breath I can forget about that pretty quickly. Yeah, as well when I overdo it. So I went really quickly, really threw everything at it, become completely obsessed with the sport.

Was really fortunate to get to a point where I got flown out to Vegas with the UFC for the original Ultimate Fighter, where it was Mike Bespin. And I can't remember who the other coach was, but I got flown out with guys called Jim Moorhead.

There was Dino Mazinga, Dan Hardy, all of these guys that got flown out to Vegas with and we got flown out and that, that experience in itself, that week out there in Vegas and meeting Dana White, Joe Silva and getting that taste of, you know, what it was going to be like to be a professional fighter was, was mind blowing. And I just missed out on the show. Just missed out on the show because originally they were going to pair me up with Reed.

I forget his first name now reading ar. I forget his first name.

But he's a bit of a British pioneer of MMA fighters who originally was going to get paired up with him and he, he turned up and, but yeah, and never come to anything. I flew home. I was waiting and waiting and waiting and it, it just didn't come.

And then I kept running out for a little while, had some really decent fights, improved, improved. And then the chance come along again. I went through the smashes. So UK versus Australia, got invited down to go for the tryouts for that.

Got all the way through to the, to the, to the, to the interview stage and everything with that. And I was used as an alternate and I was just waiting for someone to get knocked out. I was There, ready to go.

And then again, it didn't happen and it was really difficult to take.

Yeah.

And then around that period of time, my youngest, my, My youngest daughter fell quite poorly. So then I had to step back and like, the priorities changed a little bit.

I come back after, she was okay, and then, yeah, I kind of like fell out of love with it then. It didn't take long before I fell up with it, unfortunately. But yeah, it was in a, it was in a. In a completely different life.

It feels like now, you know, being able to hold yourself in a.

In their moments of chaos and understand and everything being slow motion is still that little twitch in the back of my head, but I'm too old for that. Far too old for that now.

What have you learned out of, I suppose, both the physical aspect of the sport, from doing that sport to that level, and also to those experiences of getting that little insight into what it's like to be at the top.

Oh, it's, it's. Yeah.

I think when you look at anybody that's particularly good in whatever field that they choose to be in, you've got to become obsessed to a certain level of. That's. You eat, sleep, repeat, eat, sleep, repeat that subject matter in order to be good at it.

So it is if, if you're in a relationship that's a strain on your relationship. Dieting to make weight, you know, all of these things. What it taught me was patience, control, you know, all of these kind of things.

I can remember going out before bouts and my old coach, Danny Band being. Giving me a cuddle around the back of my right, like squeezing me in a bear hug and whispering in my ear, just be first, be first.

Control the pace, control the pace, you know, and see what things. And I still hear him in my ear sometimes now when things go on. But yeah, it's, it's. You learn. I've learned a tremendous amount from that, for sure.

For sure. Applying it to day to day life.

Yeah.

Not discipline is the only thing really, I think that's given me and I think that's a real big deal for where I am with my own mind and stuff now.

What that's given me, that discipline to get up and get things done when, when the days don't feel quite right, you know, that's what, that's, that's what I've been, that's what it's given me now to get to that point where you're nearly tasting something. When I look back, think about hurts. It hurts because if I'd applied myself just that 10 more I could have been.

I think you could have applied yourself more.

I could have done, yeah. Yeah.

People often say that when they've.

I've.

Yeah, they maybe couldn't have.

No, I tell you. Yeah. I could have applied the one thing that I was quite naturally gifted at competing and if I'd applied myself properly to.

I mean, I used to drive all my. My coaches bonkers because the only time they'd seen me in the gym was if I was preparing for a bout.

Right.

And that's not the right thing to do. It's to be in there learning the new. And that. That if I'd applied myself properly. Yeah, it's that if. But some maybes, right, That's.

That's the only thing that I live with, really. If I'd applied myself properly, what could I have done, you know, after what I did achieve, really not being all in. Yeah.

So you said that the discipline was a massive thing for you there. And you said earlier about, like the importance now of getting up and getting the day started.

Well, if that doesn't happen, and obviously most of the time, if you're that driven, you're going to make sure it does happen, but life happens when it doesn't quite go to plan and you have to do something else. How do you deal with that moment?

Struggle.

In all honesty, I could struggle through that day and I'm looking forward to the next day starting and I'm not very nice to myself really, in the gym, so I've got an unhealthy obsession at the moment. As we was discussing earlier with press ups. If I miss a morning of press ups, then I'll do double the following day.

Really?

Yeah, that. That's kind of. Yeah, that's. That's kind of. Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at. Just an unhealthy obsession with press ups. But it can.

Yeah, it can really affect my day. It can really affect my day if I don't. Because that is the only control I feel that I have.

Right.

Over. Over a working day, over any given day, really.

And I think a lot of that, Sam, that mindset has been built in through being in a fire service, seeing stuff, you know, going through that and seeing how things. How things can change in a heartbeat for a family or someone's loved one.

And I think that that is one of the horrible side effects of being a first responder is being able to sit with. With yourself because you just don't know what that day's got to offer. And that's. That gets to me if I can't get up and get my routine.

Yeah.

And I suppose the other aspect of that is that you don't know what's going to happen and you also don't know which incidents are going to affect you as well. Sometimes it's a random thing. Yeah. It's not necessarily the most gruesome one or anything like that, but it can just be something really strange.

I think I remember hearing one of my friends tell me they went in just to break down the door and this old gentleman had passed away and the ambulance just needs to check. But it was the dog in the room that was sat there by him and he was like, that was the thing that got me. And he's like, it's. It's just.

It's fascinating that certain things do. I mean, how he found it over the years. You've been in 27.

Yeah, nearly 27 years.

27 Years, yeah.

Coming up to.

So a very long time serving. And I imagine it's changed a lot. What, what, what have you seen in terms of maybe the mental health aspect in the job?

Oh, wow. That. That's been.

I mean, just we look at a fire brigade now and we see the improvements that we've made over the last five to seven years even has been. Has been huge. When I joined that very old school, old sweat attitude, getting have a look at that.

Go and see what it's all about is, you know, you think, and how is that. How has that changed me as a leader? Is that. That that whole trauma is like, if you don't need to see it, I don't expect you to go and see it.

Because I can remember my first ever fate or I can remember the last one that I went to and everything in between.

Yeah.

So we need to share that trauma between everyone.

If there's no point, you or I walking in a room, experiencing something, walking out and then getting someone else to come and do the dirty work, that doesn't fit right for me. Let me and you do that. We'll share that. We'll share that. You and I will hold that responsibility within us.

And then the next time that somebody else's responsibility, we have to share that. And I think that's one of the things.

One of the biggest changes that I tried to implement myself is especially with our recruits, because of what it was back then. And I know there's that horrible to say, that morbid fascination of what you want to see what's going on, but There is. That will come back.

Yeah.

At some point of time that will come back. So that, that, that starting period of my career, how that was like getting going, have a little look, getting forced to go and do it.

When you're young and you're. Your brain, so you know, you're there and you're just rushing around and getting stuck in and then everything's slowing down and then.

How can I describe it? It's sometimes the more time you got to think about something, it's harder to do than actually do it.

When it's a dynamic situation and you're flat out and you're going at it, you process that a bit better. I think them times when it slowed down and it's gone and you're thinking about, thinking about what's in the other room or what you're doing.

I think it's completely different. A different model on how your brain processes that trauma.

Yeah.

Massive improvements through, through mental health. The stigma is definitely getting bigger. Do we struggle to talk about it? I think some of us still do.

And, and there are individuals out there, and I think there's lots of individuals that say, no, I'm fine, I'm good. And I'm pretty certain that they, they're probably not.

But as we are, you know, if we continue to do and progress as we're progressing, we offer what we do off the back of incidents now, you know, PRCs, our mental health practitioners at work, I think is a massive step in the right direction. That availability and then building the right watch culture that we have now.

For us to be able to talk in that, you know, psychological safe space on station around a mess table, I think is hugely beneficial.

And I think that helps people process everything in their own special way, whether it be humor, whether it be, you know, breaking it down, having a little cry and crack on, you know, I'll cry with the best of them if you need it. You know that.

I think there's been a massive change in how we look and what we do and the setup and what support is available now compared to when I first started the job. Yeah, huge, huge change for the good.

Yeah, it's.

Yeah.

Obviously I haven't been in anywhere near as long as you, but it seems that that push towards being more open and I think it's just the importance of, like, say everyone's an individual, everyone deals with it their own way, but the more options we can provide for that person to just go, yeah, I'm not, not sure I am all right after that. Yeah. And if they want to talk about it, if they want to get in the gym, go for a walk and talk about.

Sometimes sitting down and looking at each other around the mess table is harder to say, yeah, I'm struggling. But if you go for a run together, if you go for a walk, yeah, you're next to each other. You're not looking into that person's eyes.

You can sort of say, yeah, I'm, I'm struggling a bit. Yeah. And it just gives you that bit more safety, potentially something I reflected on last time I sat here, actually.

I was speaking to Dr. Susie Bennett, who's a leading researcher in men's mental health and suicide, and she asked me about being in the fire service and she was asking me about the. How people look at it. It's a dangerous job that we do. How is it hearing people say bad things about men when you're willing to do that sort of thing?

About me personally and the thing that I came out with was I was reflecting on my time and against nine or 10 years. And in those years, the amount of people that we've lost in incidents, probably nationwide, I think is about maybe three or four.

But the amount of people we've lost to suicide is at least double that. Yeah, probably say at least one a year within our service alone.

And so I sort of reflected on the idea that the, the public look in and think it's a dangerous job in terms of the incidents, but actually maybe more dangerous in the mental toll that people take on and don't, don't talk about. So I think such an important thing for us to keep improving on. Yeah, yeah. Would you agree with that?

Oh, 100. Yeah, wholeheartedly.

And I think as you get to the, the twilight of your career, you start you, you, you know, not getting too far away from retirement. What we're going to do, what's in place, you institutionalize.

We've been in a discipline service for however long you choose to serve for, essentially.

And during that period of time we was discussing on our way here, you know, the average person, don't quote me on the experience, five or six traumatic events in their life. A first responder, police officer, lis. It's upwards of 4, 500, you know, and you get layers and layers.

You put stuff away, you put stuff away, you put stuff away and eventually that box will over overflow, you know, and where that is terrifying to think that there are people with mdemons in their head and they're not able to reach out or they're not able to, you know, to ask, ask for help or you don't recognize it. You know, I've lost friends through suicide and you, you always sit there and think what did I miss? What could I have done? Could I have done anymore?

And the harsh reality is, is no.

I think sometimes is the case because from, from my personal experience of some of my friends is they were meticulously planned what they were going to do.

Yeah.

They didn't want to be here anymore and that was their, that was their choice. They took it into their own hands. And then I've got friends, which was a cry for help and unfortunately it went too far. How do we get to them people?

I don't know the answer to that, you know, but I think doing what we're doing as, as, as men and keep. It sounds bad but we have to have our tribe, we have to have our time together as, as men to be able to talk because that is an environment where we.

Yeah.

With friends.

You know, that is really, really important, really important book because you're not going to talk to, you're not going to go home and talk to your wife about what you've seen on us or expect anyone to live through the experience that you've just lived through.

So having that tribe of people around you to be able to lean on, be able to talk might be the chance to save that, you know, that person or get in to reach out to that person. But it's difficult. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's really, really sad. Yeah.

Is that that taking stuff out of work and not being able to tell the people around you because they may not fully understand the scenario or you don't want to burden them with it.

Yeah, yeah.

Don't need to tell them in that way.

But it is something that we often do our own detriment so that it just double makes that importance of being able to talk when you are around the people who you've experienced it with. You mentioned the importance of like getting your day started well and like exercise to your, to your mental state as well.

What are or are there any other like non negotiables for you that help you?

My personal boundaries now as I've got older, as I've got older, the boundaries I set for myself and the expectations I have of people because we do have control over our own personal boundaries. We do have control over what we expect of people or what I expect back from you if I can help you to do something.

I go into things very differently now over, over the years I've changed sometimes it makes me feel a little bit. I feel a little bit cold.

Yeah.

In my brain when I think about it. But you. We've got to keep our resilience. We've got to be able to look after us and our. And our. On our family.

So, yeah, just my personal boundaries to how far I'll let people. Not necessarily let people in, but how far I'll support somebody in certain areas, you know, because there's only so far you can.

It's only so much help. You can give someone to your signpost or get them to get the help that they want. But then on the.

On the other side of the coin of that is you can lead.

Yes.

The whole. You can need a horse to walk, but you can't make it drink. But someone will tell you they can. But it will. You know, you can.

You send side post, you can go, right, this is here. That is. This is available to you. But if the individual doesn't take it up, you know, it's. Yeah, it's different. So my.

My.

My boundaries and how far I let people emotionally in.

Yeah.

Because I think one of my strengths, essentially, is probably one of my weaknesses, and that's how empathetic I am and how I care about people that I work with and family so much, you know, and that's really hard to turn that up and down.

And then especially when you put that in the fire service and you've got a group of people which are essentially just surrogate family, if you've got that kind of relationship, that it's really hard not to go the full distance with somebody when they're struggling.

Yeah. I really resonate with that. Quite similar in that regards. And, yeah, it's so important for those boundaries.

And when people are struggling, you can give them all the support you can. You can do everything, signpost them, be there for them, make their food for them. But ultimately, that step has to come from them.

Like Dakota Maya said it to me on the podcast is, no one's coming to save you. Yeah. You have to be the one to make that step. Yeah. You. At some point, there has to be a level of you're the only one who can action anything.

Yeah.

You can have all the support around you. So, yeah, it's a difficult one from the outside because you want to help this person. You can almost. Quite often, you can almost see the answer. Yeah.

Which obviously, when they're in that moment, they can't.

Yeah.

But you're like, come on, like, you can do this. Yeah. There has to be a Level where you go, okay, I've done everything I can. I'm still here. But when you're ready.

But it takes a toll on you as someone trying to help other people as well.

Yeah, 100.

For sure. For sure.

You said what you just spoke about then. I can remember my coach, one of my old boxing coaches when I was, when I was quite poorly.

I can remember him just grabbing me and being like, James, if you sat on that lamp, up on top of that lamp post now, looking down at yourself, what would you be saying to yourself? And I was, I won't. We. I won't speak out loud, but you can imagine. And it's like, we'll do it, just do it sort of thing, that sort of pep talk.

And it is, it's that it, it's really. You can see it.

But when you're in it and, and you've got to be the driving force behind the decision to make the step to, to seek the help or reach out is. And it's frustrating. So we. That's having that, like you said, that, that control and the boundary to go. Right, I've got you this far.

I'm here and I will be here for you. I will walk as much of this path with you as I can.

But I need to look after myself during these moments as well, you know, and you can't feel guilty for doing that.

No, that's important. Yeah. You. Yeah. We're so good at helping a lot of time. We're good at helping other people, but never ourselves. We can, we can tell anyone else.

Like, you look at someone else's situation, you go, come on, do this, do that, do that and it'll be fine. And then when it's us, it's like, yeah, nah, like, can't make sense of it.

Oh, you're good at preaching it. But yeah, do as I say, not as, yeah, do as I say, not as I do is interesting in it.

What do you think that the public. I mean, I've sort of touched on that point that I made about the mental health versus the.

Sorry, the mental health risk versus the physical risk of the job. But are there any other things you think that the public misunderstands about the fire service or emergency services as a wider net?

That's a really good question there, actually.

Like, I've not recently been back, long been back from Florida and you see how the community greet their firefighters and how they've perceived and treated their first responders compared to this country is very, very different. And I think there's almost. We were kind of talking about on the way here, wasn't we? Where we don't quite have that self pride of what we actually do.

Yeah.

And of what we're willing to do for people, you know, because unfortunately, we could be attending when it's somebody's worst day of their life and we're expected to be at our best, you know, and having that empathy, the self awareness and, you know, the teamwork and all that, to be able to put this stuff together and make things happen. So, yeah, it's a. I think we're.

As from when I first started to where we are now, the trust that we built within our communities were predominantly from operational incidents, if you'd like.

And if you go from there to now and what we do in our communities and how much more we are doing, I think out of all the statutory services, I think we still are one of the very privileged ones that have.

Have, as you'll know, 99.9 of doors we knock on, they're going to be answered and usually with a smile on their face, which is a very privileged position to be in. Absolutely, yeah.

So, yeah, I don't know, I'd like to think a lot of the public still look at us that way and I still think we're in a very privileged position. Very privileged.

When you have new firefighter talking about, like recruits coming onto your watch, for example, obviously the physical demands of the job are important. Making sure they've got the skills, making sure they're trained up to the standard that we require them. What else do you look for?

From their mental capacity and maybe their mindset around the job, what are you looking for in them and what are you trying to instill in them?

Aptitude, application, confidence and then building trust with the watch, essentially. And that's something that takes a lot of time. So when we have. I. I do. I do like to work with recruits, I like to coach, I like to teach.

That's one of my. I'd like to think one of my strengths, very adaptable. I've coached boxing, I've coached mma, I've coached skydiving.

Not how to skydive, essentially, but the different disciplines and we all learn in different ways.

Yeah.

So I really like tuning in to seeing kind of what your. What's your ceiling for that individual? Because we're all. We're all so different. You know, I have my weaknesses, but.

And you'll have strengths possibly where my weaknesses are. So drilling it right down and getting into. Into, into the recruits early Setting them expectations out, I think.

Do I feel that we've had a problem with recruits over the last few years and what we've had turning up at the station? Possibly, yes. But when I joined, was there bad recruits? Yes, there was.

Do I think we should be doing more as for in regards to training and getting them prepared for station?

Yeah.

100. 100. You know, I've just experiencing freaks.

I mean, I don't want to sound old man here, but me at training school, when I was at training school, experiencing being pushed to absolute limits, we were doing very conditional drills and we were being told if we didn't complete it, that's us, we're off the course.

Yeah.

And that, that was never the case, but that was to see how far you would mentally or physically prepare to push yourself.

Yeah.

And is it, are we doing that with recruits? Are we putting them in positions of having hot wears? And I've spoken about this at length.

Really, is that the last thing you want to be thinking about? Because the job has changed massively. Are we going to as many fires, possibly not now as we was, as we were five, six, seven years ago?

Do you want an individual that the last time they had a hot wear and redlined, it was when they was at training school, or do you want somebody that were able to have the ability and the discipline to be disciplined in the job and the role to have? The only thing we do have control over, which is our fitness and our technical ability. So we need to be as sharp as we can.

Yeah.

But the recruits that come to us, certainly I like to be able to sit down building that relationship, getting them easy wins, you know, get the phones, get the tannoy, you know, be the first to washing up, make the cups of tea, them easy wins. That builds the. That builds your relationships.

Yeah.

The drills getting out in the yard is huge. We have to do that because that's where the confidence for the recruits built. That's where the confidence with the rest of the teams built.

You know, there were firefighters looking in can see. Okay. They're, you know, they've got the right attitude application. It may be a little bit weak in these areas, but they're not.

They're putting everything they can into it. And that's what we want to see. You know, that's, that's the driver, that's a cursor to see that somebody's willing to go and put it in.

We had the AC on station the other day and was having this discussion, this exact discussion with him and one of the things that kind of frustrates me is we do a selection process where we give a recruit or when we're at Babcock doing a drill, we're dragging out a 50 kilo dummy.

Yeah.

What's the average weight of a, of a, of a casualty this day and age? It's nowhere near 50 kilos. Why on earth are we training with a 50 kilo? I get it.

Yeah.

And train an environment. We can do that on station. Probably not. Because you know what some of the workforce is potentially like.

Before we know it'll have people pinging hamstrings back in time off. But we need to, we need to set them expectations and they need to know that from the get go.

Because we shouldn't be covering that on station because that's putting a pressure on all of the junior officers on what we have to do and how we, how we manage, how we coach, how we mentor these.

And it leaves up to chance. Like if you go to a good watch with good leadership. Yeah. Versus one that maybe isn't as driven is what you're describing. Yeah.

Then those two recruits who came out of training school the same level suddenly become very far apart. Yeah.

So if you can get them up to a very high level out of training school and not even risk that change going forward and that's, that's like another reason to do it. Really.

Yeah, definitely. I think there's a lot that we could look at as a, as an organization when it comes to training.

I mean I recently done a, a BA refresher and I was mildly disappointed in the fact that we was doing branch techniques to 2 meter by 1 meter piece of ply, Marine ply with a flame painted on it. I do think that's acceptable for an organization the same size of us. Apologies.

Yeah.

You know, because that they're the moments in them trained conditions and in that environment where we should be able to be push. Pushing our staff.

Yeah.

Pushing. Pushing it.

Because that's what I, that's what I want for myself and that's, that's, you know, if you're not, if you're not having, if you don't have the discipline to apply yourself on station and in your fitness regime or whatever you're doing. You're going to get caught out.

Yeah.

100. You're going to get caught out at some point in time. And that's not acceptable in my view.

I just want to turn the conversation to like fatherhood. Yeah. It's something that a lot of people do go through Some don't. How's it changed your life?

Oh, wow. Massively so. I've got two daughters. My oldest is 25, my youngest is 15. Two different mums. Have a wonderful relationship with both mums. Absolutely.

It's like one we have that, you know, kind of like as we're brought up, as when we're children in our own home, however you've been brought up, you kind of have an expectation of, or your experiences you will not let happen or that generational curse, if you like, push on to your children or whatnot. So I've been very keen on them carving their own paths and just be. And my eldest is like, yeah, I couldn't be prouder. It changes, it changes.

It changes your life massively, for sure. The stresses and strains that come of it can be. Can be terrifying. And it also brings some other things home, especially as, as firefighters.

And what we can go to when, when any young person might be involved, it can be really hard hitting and that can be something that's really difficult to, to switch off to.

You know, I can remember an incident with what we thought was a, was a, a child exactly the same size as my daughter when she was about 11 years old and picking them up, holding them and that is just that, you know, is really difficult to.

But having my experience and going through the fire service and having the discipline that I have and what's been brought to me watching like them progress and do what they've done is it's nothing better for me to be able to step back and see how, how they're achieving their goals. At my, My eldest daughter, she's a level four dog handler. She's got two close protection dogs. She's got a, she's got a Dutch herder called Katana.

So she does all that close protection. It will bite you, growl at your bark at you, whatnot. And then she's got.

Debo's a Rottweiler and my oldest daughter's two foot and a tea leaf and about 50 kilos dripping wet and she can control these dogs is that fascinates me because it would even. It would eat her alive, essentially. And then my youngest daughter, I think my.

And her mum's competitiveness and her disciplined nature have really come out in her to the fact that she is just like. She's a been cheerleaded since she was about this big, you know, four years old.

And she had a goal from that age to go to the Cheer World Championships and compete in Florida. Yeah, fast forward that, you know, to 14 years old.

Last year she went out to Florida, competed in the world championships and we got back from Florida just recently gone to seeing them achieve them goals.

Yeah.

And then the little, them little, you know, ticks in the boxes as they go along and the knockbacks and how they've progressed through their knockbacks and what they're each individual sort of like Lois with her work related stuff and Sienna with the sport and what that's brought to her and the discipline that's given her for she becomes an adult is. Yeah, I'm like truly beneficial. Really beneficial.

That's amazing. And when you reflect on what we've spoken about or your own journey and maybe when you're your lower points,.

How.

Much did they play a part in you being determined to get yourself out of that?

Huge part.

Yeah, massive part to them moments, you know, when you're, when you're doing the things that you shouldn't be doing and that's the pictures you're seeing in your head.

They're moments when you're not, you're not the father that you should be being to your child and you're falling, you know, they're moments where when they're with you and you know that they're there and you'll hear a little in the middle of the night and you can. A little pit of power and you open your corner of your eye and you'll look and you can see the silhouette in the doorway of them.

So them things that, that, that's what was the, the driving force to get myself in a position to be able to have my daughters again and be in a position where I was capable and, and healthy enough to, to look after them properly.

Yeah.

And that was a, you know, without a shadow of a doubt one of the biggest driving forces behind me getting better as such.

Yeah. One of the things you also done quite recently is start up a charity.

Yes.

So unified against violence.

That's correct, yeah.

When did that mentality we fall into of someone needs to do something, something needs to be done, become I'm gonna do something for you.

I don't won't take no for an answers type thing. You could see, you know, just look on the. The news on a day to day basis sat around a mess table. We could see how youth and knife violence was exp.

On the rise in London and in the borough of Brent where I serve. It was, it was getting it. It was. I think when we started to look at the project before it organically turned into a charity.

I think that year there was something like 476 sharp implement attacks within the borough of Brent.

Wow.

Which is a massive statistic. Not, not all of them ended up in assaults, but that was somebody being held up with a sharp implement, maybe something stolen off. And.

And you're constantly seeing on the news young people needlessly losing their lives. So that, that kind of was a driving force. Just seeing that. And at the time we had a. I mean our bar commanders. Brilliant.

Now Wayne Healy, Tim Wellman before that, again, absolutely incredible, incredible humans. But previous to that we had Alan or Mark who sadly lost up to West Miz now.

But I come up with an idea, sat around the table with him and he was like, I love it, Jace, let's make it happen. And we looked at pricing structure to get defibs and bleekids put onto our station for public access.

That was coming out an extortionate amount of money. Is there any funding in the firebug to do that? No. So we went into. He basically invited me into the contextual safeguarding team for Brent Council.

So that's all the violence reduction leads or the pernicious charities and foundations etc and community leads. And we sat back, listened to see whether it was something that.

Because it's a really difficult situation to navigate because a lot of these foundations and charities and community leads have lost members of their family or friends. So to sit back for a little while to see whether it was a project that could actually get legs in it. Yeah, it certainly was.

We ended up getting 10,000 pound funding from a funding pot from Brent Council. We were the first borough in London to have deep defibs and bleak it stored onto us, installed onto our stations for public access. Yeah, yeah.

And it snowballed into then a launch event which was kind of like we had all of the charity, like a freshers week at university, all the pertinent charities and foundations within our borough, just so the community could see what was available. Leon Whiteley was brilliant. He come down and got a load of guys that were really sort of big hitters with regards to sort of youth violence.

So he did a. A panel, a discussion panel where members of the community could talk to see what was happening, what was going on on that day.

There was workshops run on how to, you know, what's in a bleak it, how to use a bleakit. What's available. If oblique it's not available, what can you do?

Because more often than not the first responder to a knife attack or a gunshot wound is unfortunately usually a member of the Public. And as you'll know that them, them first seconds are the most vital and unfortunately, a lot of these young people pass away from.

Or knife victims pass away from massive blood loss rather than the wound itself.

Yeah.

So empowering the communities, giving them that confidence to use the equipment or knowing what to do without it. And since that project's been run, it organically turned into Unified Against Violence cic. Miriam Martinez is the other director with me.

She's doing majority of the work at the moment because I'm super, super busy with other bits and pieces. So she's been doing some fantastic work. They set up an open day and we did a got bleak it on North Cairns fire station quite recently.

Oh, brilliant.

But yeah, it was. And the data that we've got back from that, Wembley's Bleak is. Wembley's defib is being used at least once a week. The BLEEP is coming out.

Yeah, it's.

It's Sam, it's. It's.

Wow.

It's saving. It's saving lives. Yeah. 100. It has been that impactful. Yeah.

That's amazing.

Yeah. So they were registered on the over the Good Samaritan app.

Yes. Yeah. That's one where it shows you where things are.

Exactly that.

Yeah.

So registered that food and then through the las. So if you don't on and nine. You know, we wanted to reassure the communities as well that if you needed help, they're there.

These bleed kits are there for the public access, but essentially, if you turn up and there's a crew there, we are going to support you. So part of that whole project was upskilling the staff at Parkwell, Wembley and Wilson on how to deal with bleak. It's.

Well, how to deal with knife and gunshot wounds, essentially. So, yeah, massive impact. Yeah, massive impact, yeah.

What is it that young people are finding in violence that they should be finding somewhere safer?

Oh, that's a really. That's a really complicated question. It is. So from my experience of working within our community in Brent and being part of the.

And being involved in this contextual safeguarding teams, I mean, it is very, very deep, deeply rooted.

It's very, very clever how gangs essentially groom young people, how they pick them, young people out, how they, you know, single parent families, Mum might know or dad might not be around until certain time at night. So they got that period from where they've Left School till 6 o' clock where they might be on their own.

And they're very, very clever in how that they do. How they do things. But what we Need. And what these young people need is these youth spaces back.

All of this has been, over the years has been taken away. So the ram youth spaces, the ram sport, all of these kind of things.

And unfortunately, a lot of these sports come with a financial burden and some families can't even afford to do that. Yeah. But it's. It is really getting back to the roots of the basics. And when we were growing up as kids and we're running around in.

In the woods or running around your streets and you know, it. The. The driving factors is. Or one of the driving factors is. Is them feeling part of something.

Yeah.

You know, and then that expectation of when they're pulled into this environment that they're expected to go and do what they. What they do. And they're very clever, you know, for the age groups that they target.

They know that the police are very kind of stuck on what they can do in the way of, you know, laws and stuff. Yeah. Legal matters and stuff. But, yeah, very, very, very difficult environment to navigate on how we do and what we do to support these young people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Giving them a place where they can feel belonging, I suppose, is. Is that important thing.

And it goes wider than just knife crime, I suppose, like you look at any of the. All the manosphere stuff people are talking about, that's.

That's people targeting vulnerable people and making them feel part of something as simplistic level. But do you. Do you know these. Is there stats on the youth, like place closures?

Because I'm thinking back to mine and yeah, he's played black football across the road. Just a ball and just. Just mates. That was it. And then I was lucky enough to go to youth clubs on a Friday night or whatever.

And it gave me something to do, gave me people I got to look forward to seeing each week. And I went to two different ones over my childhood which were both relatively close to where I live, so I was very lucky.

But it also feels like those and any that I've heard of have shut down since then. So I don't know.

I'd be a really interesting statistic to find out. I actually haven't got the answer to that, but I. What I do know is it is.

It is very complicated within Brent because you've got so many areas which are run by different little pockets of gangs as such.

So we could have one youth center where only one group could be, essentially, and then we'll have one on another end of town where only one center could do, essentially. There is a fantastic charity Called United Borders.

Right.

A guy runs it, Justin. He's got an incredible story behind his reasons for setting up his charity. But essentially he's got a double decker bus which is a recording studio.

It's incredible story.

So he'll go from like Church Road over to Stonebridge, which are two of the worst affected areas in Brent, and he'll go over and he'll give him stu, he'll give these, these young people studio time, time to create music. And then he'll go over to the other side to Stonebridge and they'll give them young people studio time to make music. Music.

And then essentially what he's doing is he's putting it all together.

Yeah.

So then when he sits these young people down who have got this inherent hate for each other for no reason other than that's what's been told that it's like, guys, you've just, you've just, you've been making, you've been creating music together, you know, how powerful is that? It's so amazing. Yeah, it's really, really cool. Really cool.

What is one thing that you think young people, male or female, I assume it's more men being involved in this sort of crime. But young people, what do they need to hear to stop them going into this sort of thing? What would your message be?

Oh, a message. I don't think there'd be one message, Sam. I think what they need is message.

Mentors, mentorship, guidance, support, validation from some of the, the youth work I've done. I helped out on a, a project in Milton Keynes from my old boxing club. They did box back to boxing, I think I can't quite remember the charity was.

And something really resonated with me on one day when I was there. So basically they have like a PRU school. So when their kids have been taken out of mainstream schooling, it's not for them, they go to a prus school.

So they learn the fundamentals, communication skill, how to operate, they get their English, maths, the real kind of basics. And we'd have them once every Thursday we'd go pick them up in a minibus, bring them back. So the syllabus was like a six weeks course, if I remember.

So first part of the course essentially, first part of the hour that we'd have them for this two hours on a Thursday we'd do some boxing and hold pads, da da da da da. And then we would have a mental health session. I would bring a mental health practitioner in to talk to them. What are your triggers?

How do you feel at home if I'm a dad or arguing, you know, these kind of things.

And then one week it would be first aid and it would all build up to a crescendo where we would have a little event, not sparring or anything like that, but doing pad work. And I can remember working with this young, this young man and I said the simplest of things to him which was aired on the. Well, proud of you.

Well proud of you mate. How far you come. I'm really proud of you. Anyway, thanks mate. Nobody's ever told me that.

And he's about 14 years old and that choked me, that hit me to the core. Where a 14 year old boy has never been told or had the validation from anyone in his family, you know, to hear that.

So when I've anything, if there was anything to say or to recommend, I would recommend finding a sport. Yeah, yeah. There is no. There, there is definitely, definitely.

It's no coincidence when people apply themselves to something in that, in that arena, whether it be football, cheerleading, like my daughter, my nieces, whether it be boxing, the skills that, that teaches you. Because I think we've lost our way in society and within our schools of. There's no such, there's first, second or third.

Well, I'm sorry, there is, you know, and that's what I've always.

Had a bad life.

When they get out into the real world and 100 someone tells them they've not got what they wanted and it's like I always used to get a sticker saying well done.

Like yeah, he's get gold star for doing nothing. But that, that's essentially it get to you.

I, I'll always, I'll always go, I'll always talk about my youngest of my three, my three nieces because they, they've all done, they've all cheerleaded and my three nieces have carved their own path. I've got one at university starting to be a history teacher.

I've got one that's starting to be a physician's assistant and she's going through some of her final exams today. And then I've got one that's training to be a quantity surveyor. And my youngest has followed the same path. And the.

You have to, at that age you have to have failures, have to have discipline. So turning up to be somewhere on the right time because somebody expects you to be there or other people are relying on you.

The discipline, you know, the, the confidence, the communication, the fa, the failures. We young people need that, to experience that, to take that Away.

Yeah.

As we are doing now is over.

So that's where you learn. You make mistakes, you learn from it.

Yeah.

You don't make that mistake again, hopefully. But yeah, yeah. I mean, you take, yeah.

All those things, those actual, like, lessons, and then you've also probably got a mentor there that you spoke about, your coach. You've got friendship in the other people there. You've got physical health. Yeah. Mental health building.

Like, there's so many aspects to it, more than just the sport. And it can be any sport, like you say it can. Yeah.

Whichever one you choose, whichever one, you might try a few before you find one that you really like. But. But yeah, again, I'm. I'm very lucky and privileged to have been able to take part in sports, multiple sports throughout my childhood.

And, yeah, I learned a lot from that. And I think it is a brilliant suggestion.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Well, that's my opinion, anyway. Yeah, definitely.

Jason, it's. It's amazing and it's. It's been brilliant talking to you today.

The way I like to finish my conversations is by asking my guest to leave a question for the listener.

So if the listener was to go away and start a conversation about what we've spoken about today or about something else, if you can give them that question to start that conversation, what question would you give them?

Oh, one thing that I say to my kids, which I changed completely, was instead of asking them, how was your day with what have you done today that made you happy?

Nice.

Because it opens up a different questioning path or method to talk to them. So what have you done today for yourself, essentially, I think is a. Is. Is a good one, what you've been up to today, Saf.

Yeah. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, it's really good.

Yeah, that would probably be it. That's my word of wisdom.

Yeah, I like it. Take it away and use it.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for coming on today. I really enjoy the conversation and I appreciate being. Appreciate you being so open with your story as well.

If people want to find you online or find the charity, find out what you're doing. Where can people do that?

Well, I'm all on Instagram. I'm on Instagram as jqbiak Unified Against Violence. CIC is also on Instagram, so it's unified underscore against underscored violence.

So it should be easy enough to find. But yeah, just on the social, really. Instagram mainly.

Awesome. I will tag it all below so that anyone listening can just scroll down and have a look. Thank you very much, but otherwise from me to the listener.

Thank you so much for listening today and hopefully you found some value from the conversation. If you haven't already, then please do follow the show wherever you're listening. It really helps the show grow.

And if you've done that already, then also leaving a rating really helps us as well. But otherwise, thanks again, Stay curious and I will see you in the next one.