You Can't Policy Your Way to Wellness

speaker-3: All right, Billy, we're back with another episode. I'm excited about this one.

speaker-2: Same here, same here, it's gonna be a good one.

speaker-3: This is the main responder podcast. Real conversations about work, the pressure and the lives shaped by service. There's no single lane here, no script, just honest talk. Let's get into it. So we've got, we've got with us today, Wally Frazier, Brad Gallant. Brad, I saying your last name right? Gallant.

speaker-0: Go ahead,

speaker-3: All right, all right. Which one do you prefer?

speaker-0: I say go ahead.

speaker-3: Galean. All right. Brad Galean. I made it. I Frenched it up. I Frenched it up for you. I'm really, really excited to have this conversation. I appreciate you guys coming on. We kind of talked and did this fast because, you know, you guys are making a lot of moves with the, second annual, ⁓ main wellness conference. The first one, that was great. Billy and I both went, Billy presented. I presented a lot of great speakers there.

speaker-2: You

speaker-3: It was, it was freaking, it was good stuff. So I'm glad you guys are doing it again.

speaker-2: Great feedback from it. think the crowd was good ⁓ from the standpoint of interaction. I liked it because it wasn't just police. We had fire police EMS in there. So it's pretty good to get the whole crew involved and make them feel a little better about the state of first responders here in Maine and that everybody's interested in it. It's not just one avenue that LE is going down that path. It's everybody united going down that path and consuming that information. at the same pace. I did appreciate that and every other presenter that was out there too that I sat in on, they gave a shit about it. It was good information, well received. again, kudos. I think a good first one in the book for it and looking forward to what your number two is going to have in store for us.

speaker-3: Yeah, that would, that's a really solid point down here in Southern Maine. have the, the training center and they're doing kind of a wellness, um, series and it's just so refreshing to see fire EMS, everybody else out there. And it's obvious, right? I mean, it shouldn't be so shocking to me, but the stories are so similar. It's nice to be able to kind of network and get closer. I don't know through all this bad shit, right? It's like, it's like wellness is like, brings us together with all these, sometimes negative stories, but, um, But to be able to reach out across the different professions, I think, has been awesome. And I said Wally Fraser, but technically it's doctor. It's doc. That is correct. Yeah. Wally, you've got, I know I see on Facebook, I see you're doing good things up there, getting clinicians ⁓ working alongside with you, doing some cool stuff. Also, do you have a nonprofit? ⁓

speaker-1: So I have my private practice for mental health counseling. I've got a couple of new employees right now and I have a nonprofit which is Toned Out Project, which a colleague of mine, Dr. Emily Jennevar, she and I last year, two years ago almost, started this idea of how do we create a nonprofit that's going to help support first responder wellness and how can we do something. it was about six months ago. of planning, got things put together and got established as a 501C3 and started raising money to help bring more attention to public safety and first responder wellness.

speaker-3: Awesome. Awesome. so Brad, are ⁓ run for PD Sergeant.

speaker-0: Yes, sir.

speaker-3: Yep. Part of the SISM team. I was looking on the website, all kinds of stuff. What caught my eye was officer of the year in 2017. Field training officer, you name it. And one of the things, I think it said a personal message there that you're an advocate in personal growth. And I think that's obvious. mean, not knowing you, except for when we met last year, clearly that is true. I think you embody that. Can you tell us a little bit more? about who Brad is.

speaker-0: Yeah. Um, it's funny. It's funny. You mentioned officer of the year 2017. Um, that was, that was the beginning of my, my personal downslide and my professional downslide and what got me into wellness or caring so much about my own wellness and everybody else's, um, from 2017 to 2020 was a pretty good, steady downslide, uh, divorce issues at work, so on and so forth. ⁓ was taken out of work. I was out of work for about six weeks, ⁓ found unfit for duty because of just stuff I had going on stuff we all have going on that, ⁓ we choose to, to not tend to deal with. And when I came back, I spent about six months deciding if I was going to finish off a career and, if I was going to go be a Walmart greeter or stock shelves or do something else. And I decided that. I did not want others to end up in a position I was in. And if I could do something to positively change that, then I guess that's the next step in my career. ⁓ And that's what I've spent the last four years doing. ⁓ That ended us right here where we're at right now.

speaker-3: I've learned that every time I just share a little bit of something I was struggling with, somebody comes out and says, hey, thanks for saying that. It's just that you know you reach people. we've all had those issues, and it doesn't mean we can't bounce back from them. You were also, Brad, instrumental in starting this conference last year.

speaker-0: So in yes, in 2023, I wrote a law enforcement mental health wellness grant for my PD. Part of my part of my journey was finally connecting with a clinician. And I tell people all the time, I went through the first 12, 13 years of my career, never had personal contact with a clinician, barely made it through my 13th year. And every, every day I look back and I wonder how the hell did I get through this job without having some neutral professional person that I could, I could talk to that I could vent to. Part of that grant was focused on getting my guys at my PD in front of clinicians, just wellness checks. How you doing? Hey, meet this person, getting them on board with, they're not here to shrink your head. They're here to make a contact with you. And then one day down the road, you need a professional. At least you've met a couple. Another part of that grant was. going to conferences. got the privilege to go to the COPS National Conference on Wellness and Trauma twice. And after the first time I went, I came back to the chief and I said, chief, I want to put a conference together here. We're out in the middle of nowhere in Rumford. get it. But I think we could, I think we could do it. And he said, if you want to give it a try, you got my full support. And within 72 hours, I had reached out to about a dozen people and 11 of the 12 I reached out to got back to me almost immediately. Hey, I'm on board. Let me know when. And that's what started our conference last year.

speaker-3: Let me ask you this because we've done a couple conferences ⁓ down down here ⁓ They were well received, know great. I I kind of had the same feeling, you know when we went to yours last year, but I Say feeling because how did you feel after when it was all done? I remember having like an amazing feeling and then a little bit of a like a little emptiness like it's over You know all the hard work and how'd you feel like, you know setting it up and going through that day?

speaker-0: The first 48 hours or so I felt great. just felt relieved because it was done and I could rest. ⁓ But there was very quickly a void. ⁓ I find that we, ⁓ I'll speak for all of us on this call, probably do it to an extent, we fill our plates so much that when things leave our plates, because they're either finished or we're no longer being involved in them or whatever, there is a void. And we constantly have to fill that. part of self care is being able to say, I don't have room on my plate or, Hey, I've got a little open space. Let me take a minute before I just start throwing more on. ⁓ but part of the, part of the thing for me at the conference was making connections and knowing that, or finding out if we can take this forward. Can we make this an annual thing? Because if we did it every year in Rumford, it would flounder within two or three years. ⁓ again, we're kind of out in the middle of nowhere geographically. We're not set up to, to hold a big group of people. And I immediately reached out to Wally within, I'd say within two weeks of the conference being over. And he was the number one person, toned out project, spoke to what I believe in. And I wanted us to connect and see if we could make this something in the future.

speaker-3: Awesome. So Wally, what, I mean, I'll ask you both, but I'll start with you, Wally. What are we expecting this year?

speaker-1: So this year we're bringing it to the city of Brewer right outside of Bangor. ⁓ So it's a little bit more populated than Rumford. No offense, Brad. We're still gathering presenters, proposals for presenters to look at who wants to present, what do they want to do. We've got some really good proposals that have come in. We're going to wait about another month before we start making decisions on who's presenting. I think we have outside of our keynote and panel. think we have 12 spots for presenters. We're looking to make an announcement about our keynote, which we're hoping will bring in some more proposals and then we can really look and see how do we cover all of the bases of all the different public safety ⁓ areas. We don't want to be just focused on law enforcement or just focused on fire. I really hope to get some stuff on family support. spousal support. That's a huge thing that I hear a lot lately, especially in terms of mental health. I also want to make sure that we're including dispatchers, corrections, really looking at all of the different areas and everyone that's impacted so everyone can get something up.

speaker-3: That's awesome. I wanted to say ⁓ to Brad real quick, ⁓ I thought it was kind of genius to do it at a school last year. It was something that never really crossed my mind, but I'm like, have all the classrooms, you got an auditorium. And I'm sure that was just the pivot you had to make, Work with what you had, but it was a good idea, I thought.

speaker-0: That was our only real choice for a venue, but it did. It worked out fantastic. We've always had great support from the school system here. And the minute I brought it up to them, they said anything we needed, we got.

speaker-3: We have a theme for the conference. know Wally had mentioned some stuff about some family stuff there. But is there anything in particular that we're hitting or just kind of trying to get as vast an array of topics as possible?

speaker-1: I think for me right now, I just want to see what do we have for ideas and different things coming in for presentation proposals. And then we can really start to decide, is there going to be a specific theme or is it going to be a little bit of everything?

speaker-0: I would agree. ⁓ Last year, we did not go in with a theme. ⁓ We don't have one currently. However, I think all of us working on this right now have a strong focus on not just individual, but family. I think you'll see a lot of our presentation choices. ⁓ If a presenter puts something down on paper that looks great, but it isn't family focused in some way, there's probably going to be a less likely chance that they're picked. That was some of the most positive feedback we got last year. And some of the, some of the most interesting conversations that, that came after the conference was talking about family, family impact. Whether that be how the officer or firefighter or, or EMT is dealing with their own problems and how it affects their family or what the family can be doing to, to make them a strong cohesive group because of what they deal with at work.

speaker-3: Yeah, I was going to ask you, was, was, ⁓ you know, generally, what was some of the feedback that you got from the last conference?

speaker-0: A lot of positive feedback. ⁓ The theme that I heard the most was, hey, what can you do to bring it closer to home? Bring it closer to me. ⁓ Multiple people out on the coast had that comment, ⁓ which again, was one of the driving forces to pair with Toned Out Project. ⁓ I don't want to... speak out of line at this point, but we've already talked to some of the Southern Maine clinicians, the ones that work with departments. And I think that we probably will be looking forward to somewhere in Southern Maine next year. And I want to, I want to see this happen every year. There's no reason that we can't create something that, that touches all points geographically in Maine over the course of the next two, three, four, five years. And keep it going, keep it bouncing around. Cause frankly, wellness is such a hot topic right now that certain people have already begun to get burned out on. If you do it in the same location, even if it's centralized, you're going to get the, ⁓ same thing as last year type of attitude. Whereas if you bounce it around, I mean, there's not that many people in York County that are probably going to drive to Bangor. There aren't that many people north of Bangor that want to go down to York County and everywhere in between. So if we can space it out nice, have a good array of topics, ⁓ I think we have potential to keep it going.

speaker-2: I do think that that's a great plan. Facing it out like that and doing the geographical location change, even if you had some of the same presenters and topics, moving it around to different locations is going to be the biggest draw for you, for all of us to get that impact, get fresh faces, get in the seats and spread that message.

speaker-3: Yeah, it's interesting when we, when we did the couple that we did, because we're so close to New Hampshire and even Massachusetts, I mean, we ended up getting just a good, you know, a good little chunk from both Massachusetts and New Hampshire, which was, know, which was cool. Cause then you get to hear the things that, you know, that they're doing. And again, just, just, ⁓ just that networking that's so important. But Brad, you said something that, that, that's, that hit me. ⁓ I have already been like burned out on the wellness stuff at times. All it is is just kind of, okay, let me just step back. The wellness is not selfishly, but it's self care at times. It's about, it has to be about me at certain moments. And, ⁓ and I had to step back because I, like Billy, Billy to hear me, was like, I think people are starting to use wellness as an excuse to not work, to not do this, to not do that. And so I've been, ⁓ you know, ⁓ I gotta be careful when I say that, but it's, it's like anything. ⁓ and wellness is everywhere. And I feel like it's a little bit, it's getting exploited. You know, when you look on certain social media stuff and everybody wants to do this and that, you know, in those, ⁓ in those real moments, you know, conferences like this and, ⁓ conversations like this, I think is at least what, what fills my cup to know that it's, know, it's legit and we need it. ⁓ have you guys seen a change at all in, you know, I know, I know the wellness checks, things like that. We've been seeing more of that stuff, but have you seen a change in attitude, more acceptance?

speaker-1: One of the things that I've seen and I continue to see more of is especially as some of the apartments are starting to look at wellness visits, ⁓ some of the first responders are starting to become more open to the idea of even talking. I have one agency that I work with where it's mandatory once a year for everybody. And there are some people who've complained about it, but they're like, I'll go do it. But then... they've said afterwards that had they not been forced to go, they wouldn't have gone. And I've had people open up to me about things they never would have talked about had they not needed to do it. So I'm starting to see more of that shift. The other thing that I'm seeing more of too is in terms of the burnout and the frustration is I see a lot of ⁓ leaders in the public safety realm that are saying, yes, we're going to do this, we want to do this, we're going to check the box and say we're doing it, but then there's not a whole lot of follow through. And so that's one of the things that I do look for is what agencies are actually doing things, what agencies are stepping up. ⁓ How are we really trying to look at how do we improve people's wellness to prevent someone from being out of work or something else from happening? And how do we really take care of the people that are taking care of everybody else?

speaker-3: Yeah, I don't know if you guys have heard me say this before, but I, I agree. Sometimes we can be quick to create a policy, ⁓ quick to, know, just make it, you know, ⁓ a work thing, insurance, a liability thing. But I've always said like, for me, it's been a slow process. I, I still honestly say I don't have a wellness program, but I've got a culture of wellness. I think, ⁓ you know, our conversations are, are deep at the police department. We. We care. We handle business amongst each other. And I think in a really cool way, Billy, you could probably speak to that more than I could, but, ⁓ but there has to be that authenticity that, that check the box wellness. And I think we're seeing a lot is just, I think that's where I start to get that burnout. It's like, here we go. Still, it's been a lot of cool stuff. think, ⁓ I think people sometimes are surprised when I say, no, we don't really have a wellness program, but, most, would say 90, 90 % of the conversations we have are wellness related. outside of whatever's going on at work.

speaker-2: I if I can hit on that, I agree. think one of the best things that you've done for our wellness program is to not make it a program, not make it a policy. It's the culture. We talk openly about things and we have candy. Yeah, we have very good candy conversations and it does make it feel much more authentic because it is versus, you know, I mean, yeah, there's going to be a place and time. for that policy to put in, to be put into effect. But I think it's only after we really, really get into it and make it a worthy cause, so to speak, and really ingrain it in everybody before we say, okay, now you, because once you start telling people they have to do it, there's going to be pushback. But if it's just like, Hey, we've been doing this now for two, three, four years, we're just going to make it. think people are going to be more than happy to just say, yes, where do I sign and continue doing what they're doing.

speaker-1: And I think you make a good point, Billy, that when it's the culture, that's what it is. And Chief, you mentioned the authenticity. In my research, when I did my research for my dissertation, one of the things that I found is that it's the authenticity of the law enforcement leaders when it comes to wellness. And those are the ones where you start to see that there's more benefit, there's more follow through versus checking the box of, I created this policy to... Check the box and move forward.

speaker-0: be the fourth word to say the word since all three of you guys said it. ⁓ the most important thing to me every, every time you given that, that pool of words and narrow it down, narrow it down, narrow it down to find out the most, you know, most important thing to you. ⁓ authenticity is always in my top three. And I, I struggle when I see programs that have the best intention that, that put a policy in place. that you know three weeks after they start talking about having a peer support team already have a peer support team and I mean we're we're two we're over two and a half years into this grant we don't have a peer support team. We're two and a half years into this grant and we don't have a structured wellness policy per se but the culture is is you know you're right on when you when you mention the culture. I tell all the guys all the time, I right now I'm the guy with the resources, but you don't have to come to me. Okay. Go to, go to somebody else. If you're having a problem, let them filter through me, filter through the chief filter through somebody else. Let us, let us get you the resources you need because the only thing we give a damn about is making sure people who need some help get some help. ⁓ I don't, I don't need, I don't need a check mark somewhere saying, look, Brad referred three people to peer supporter. Brad could. Got two guys connected with counselors this week. Who cares? You know, are we doing the best we can to help our people help themselves? And I think more than anything, that's the foundation of our program, if we're going to call it a program.

speaker-3: That's great. That you make me feel better. Cause you know, you kind of get boxed in that corner like, Hey, we need a policy. We need to do this. But I'm like, the whole time I was just like, I don't, I don't think so. I don't think I'm there yet. You know, and I think Billy said it I agree, you know, down the road, some things may come up. Like, I always talk about restorative rest. If you have an agency large enough that could let somebody take a little snoozy on the midnight shift. If you have other people there, that probably requires a policy, you know? But, ⁓ but it also to me makes a lot of sense. If you're working on either side of a ball game. mean, these are things that you still want to be a dad. You still want to be a mom. I think I've said it before. Like I, I gotta bring my daughter to dance class, right? I've, I am lucky to have an easier schedule than the, than the folks working, working the road now. But they are, they're also doing the same thing. So it's, it's, you know, it's one of those things that There's a few things out there that might require a policy, but let's get there and let's get there slow So it's done methodically and it's done right Brad just just like you said so ⁓ I love that what what? Going back to the conference Do we have any speakers already lined up? Are you looking for anything in particular right now or just? Accepting proposals and you know, you'll have a committee to weigh that out

speaker-0: ⁓ still expect, still accepting proposals. I expect that there will be duplicates in some topics. And I think anybody putting in proposals, you know, has to, has to understand that, you know, we are going to have to weigh those things out. ⁓ like Wally said, we've got 12, we've got 12 spots dedicated for speakers. And then we have a spot dedicated to a panel, ⁓ that will get more information out in the future. ⁓ but we're going to end up. finishing the conference off with a panel and we're gonna start the conference off with a keynote. I was lucky enough to be working with a group of people who when I threw out a keynote they were like yeah if you think that'll work great and we were able last week to secure her to come visit. ⁓ When I think about keynotes, ⁓ I was lucky enough to work with the Maine Resiliency Center and bring Travis Howes to Lewiston when he came last year. ⁓ We brought Matt Griffin last year to our conference and both those guys, think if you look at them, we can talk about the word authentic again, right? Both in their own way. AK D'Azanti is going to be our keynote this year. And if you know AK at all, if you've watched any of her stuff, any of her, her podcasts, her social media, uh, she is not the warm and fuzzy person. Um, she is not the person that's going to put her hand on your shoulder and, and tell you that all your problems are going to go away. Um, she, she's heavily focused on, on burnout, on self care. She was a cop for years has taken her experiences and turn them into her, uh, work as an author and as a presenter. And I, I couldn't be more ecstatic to have her. Uh, I, I'm again, when you talk authenticity, when you talk about putting somebody in front of a group of cops and firefighters and EMTs and correction officers who don't want flowers and rainbows blowing up their butt. She's, she's somebody who's going to present solid information and in a way that's going to be impactful. And we're, super excited to have her come.

speaker-1: ⁓ AK has got a good following and I think as people start to find out from this podcast that, ⁓ she's going to be our keynote, expect there may be some more people putting in to, to present, ⁓ expanding our pool of options.

speaker-3: Brad, you hit it. Just say it to me straight. That's the way you're going to get my attention. know what mean? That's the way you're going to keep me engaged. I actually connected with her, I believe, on LinkedIn and just looking at some of the information, some of the clips and stuff that she has out there. You already get the vibe. You know what I mean? You already get that feeling of what's going to come. So that's exciting. I feel like it's tough to get good people, you know what I mean, to come and speak at conferences. I come up to Maine. We kind of had the same issue, but... There's, there's some top-notch people clearly that are ⁓ willing to spread that message. And that's, that's incredible. So I know I'm looking forward to, be in there. ⁓ Wally, I know this is a cheesy question, but I feel like I got to ask it. Give me something wellness that you think is important right now. ⁓ for first responders.

speaker-1: So probably in my mental health work, one of the biggest things that I see working with people right now is the struggle with power control. On the job, no matter what you do, whether it's dispatch, corrections, fire, EMS, or law enforcement, you must control your environment. You have to control the phone calls, the interactions. You have to be able to maintain that control. In some cases, it's a matter of life or death. And what I see is there's a lot of people that when they go home from work, they struggle with not having the same controlled environment. And it causes a lot more challenges and issues with significant others and family members because, you know, why aren't you doing what I said? Everyone does what I tell them to when I tell them to. Or why is that dish in the sink? It should be in the dishwasher because every single thing in the fire truck or in the firehouse has a specific spot that it goes so can find it when I need it. And so that's one of the biggest things that I see is people struggle to find that balance of how can I go from being at work and needing to control everything to being home and not being able to control any.

speaker-3: What's a piece of advice for that type of scenario?

speaker-1: I think specifically for those sorts of things, think step number one is being able to recognize and acknowledge that I can't control everything. There's a huge difference between having on that uniform and doing that job versus being home and being able to recognize when I'm home, everyone's not just going to listen to me because I say something. And so that would be the biggest piece of advice that I would start with is what's I would start with being able to recognize and acknowledge this is an issue and I need to just be aware. Brad, what do

speaker-3: What are your thoughts about wellness today? What's a takeaway?

speaker-0: ⁓ think the biggest thing for me, and I'll, I'm going to go back to, ⁓ I spent a week at the Travis Mills foundation in December. I went through a path and what an amazing organization, what an amazing group of people, ⁓ wanting nothing more than to help everybody help themselves. That being said, one of the, one of the guides harped on. weaponizing and it was very apparent that we all did it in some capacity and I do it all the time for different things. But as an example, I like to go to the gym. We all like to go to the gym, right? It boosts our mood. It's good for us. So on and so forth, or exercise in some other way. We like to do something, even go for a walk, whatever. Well, it's been three days since I've been in the gym. I woke up this morning and I was like, crap, I don't have time to go to the gym today. I'm not going to be able to go till tomorrow morning. It's been more than 72 hours since I went to the gym and I caught myself spiraling because I was allowing myself just for that brief moment. stopped myself. ⁓ but I was weaponizing something that was good for me. And the fact that I wasn't able to do it or I wasn't building enough time in my day for me to do it. And I think we do that all the time in little micro bursts. We do it at work, we do it at home. You know, the dishes weren't done. The kids were supposed to pick up so we could get out of here on time to go to the game. Whatever, you know, my employee didn't get his follow up done that I asked him to do and damn it, the DA's office wanted it yesterday. And all these little things. without recognizing that, ⁓ hey, you know what? That guy ended up catching like 14 calls in the last four hours of the shift and nope, he didn't have time. There's no way he could have done it. But instead of taking a second and seeing the why, I automatically weaponize it and then allow myself to get spun on. I still do it, but I do it a lot less. And ⁓ I don't think that's one. practice that allows you to get that under control. I don't think you can say, okay, I'm going to breathe for five minutes a day and that's going to fix it. Or I'm going to pull cold plunge or I'm going to run my mile or I'm going to do this. You can't find one thing that's going to fix everything. ⁓ But finding something that will allow you to draw your focus back inward and give yourself a minute, see what's important. Are you getting stressed about something that's completely out of your control? Because I do it all the time. I don't know about you guys. ⁓ but ever since I've been able to pause for a second and go, Hey, you know what? I don't have any control whatsoever on the outcome of that, no matter how much I stress about it. So I'm just not going to stress about that now. It's invigorating to be able to do that. It's a relief to be able to do that. ⁓ And it's a practice that you have to do constantly, right? Because we're constantly presented with things, ⁓ you know, driving in traffic. Okay. There's some idiots going to cut you off. Well, you've got no control over the fact that he did that. You've got control over your reaction to that, your response to that. ⁓ And that is, that is, I think the one biggest point for me is controlling those responses, lessening the reactions, and controlling the response.

speaker-2: think that hits really hard for me in a good way. Just off of that, Brad, having just one resource, one tool in the toolbox to fix things. was a point where I was like, cold water, like you said, cold water is my thing. It's what I need to do. It helps me so much. And I weaponized it. I didn't have time to do this. I couldn't make it to the beach. My cold tub was frozen over. I had to break it with a sledgehammer. I made all these excuses up and what it did was it actually made things worse for me. So what we are trying to do collectively is give everybody more tools that we can rely on. And so what you said there really hit hard for me. So I appreciate that.

speaker-3: Yeah, we're only human. So you've got to be pretty intentional about your happiness and, and, and your mood. Brad, you just gave that great example. You're on the road and somebody cuts you off. You know, you, you get to choose how you react to that, or at least catch yourself and then be set. ⁓ and, and believe me, I do it all the time. ⁓ I am struggling right now with the gym. I absolutely love how I feel when I come home from the gym. We've got stuff at work to work out. just bought, we even got some new stuff on a grant, some great, some great equipment. Have I used it for whatever reason? I have, I have a block. think Wally, think you're a right. You, ⁓ jujitsu if I, if I'm. Yes. Yeah. So I would love nothing more than do that. I can't work up the damn courage to walk through the doors and just try it. I don't know. It's a block and yeah, that's something I got to work on, but you got to be intentional about. you know, ⁓ our happiness, really.

speaker-1: Come up to Bangor, I'll take you.

speaker-3: Yeah

speaker-2: He might actually do that.

speaker-3: I know. I want to be obviously respectful of time. Wally, I know you guys have a website set up for the conference, but is there any information that we want to get out there as far as, you know, the website or how people can get in touch with you guys?

speaker-1: So biggest thing right now, we just started to get our website launched and up, ⁓ mainwellnessconference.org. People can check that out. We are not doing registrations yet. We're hoping that'll come in the next couple of months. Over the next month, we really want to try to get as many proposals in so we can have a really good option for who we're going to have speak. ToneOutProject.com is the nonprofit's website. People can check that out as well. We're also looking for sponsors for the conference. So if anyone wants to sponsor, send me an email. You can go through the website. There's information on there about that. Reach out and let me know and we can take a look and get your logo or if someone wants a vendor table. All that information is right on the mainwellnessconference.org website.

speaker-3: Brad, anything to follow up on that?

speaker-0: I think Wally nailed most of it. ⁓ mainwellnessconference.org. We're going to be updating it, ⁓ over the next few weeks. It's going to look a lot different than it does right now, but we're, we're slowly getting there. ⁓ now I'll throw out, if anybody's got any questions, wants to call me direct, ⁓ 357-5880. Call me anytime and we can chat about the conference and talk about whatever. Don't write it on bathroom walls anymore than it already is. You know, whatever.

speaker-3: That's great. I'll make sure to add all that information in the show notes as well. if anybody wants to, they'll have it there that we would have click on the website link and stuff like that. Billy, any last thoughts, brother?

speaker-2: I think thank you guys for taking the time with us today to talk, also, know, paramount what we're doing together for wellness in the first responder community. really appreciate you guys stepping forward and taking on that initiative with the conference. ⁓ Thanks for your time. I really appreciate everything.

speaker-0: Thank you guys for having us up. Absolutely.

speaker-3: Yeah, this has been great. as time goes on, as we get closer, if you guys want to jump back on, know, anything we can do, you know, to help, you know, have, you know, just this little podcast. So let's get the word out there. But again, we're certainly willing to help any way we can. So ⁓ thank you guys both.

speaker-0: Thank you guys. ⁓