Q: What does a Marine Corps veteran, former police officer, former firefighter, motivational speaker, and international touring comedian all have in common?

A: They all live inside this week’s most entertaining guest, Travis Howze.

Travis has come from a horrific experience as a firefighter when nine of his “brothers” were killed in a building collapse. He volunteered for the recovery team that pulled the bodies from the smoking building, causing him to sink deeply into post-traumatic stress and alcoholism.

After Travis’ incredible defeat of his PTS, he has had a successful career in comedy and authored Create Your Own Light, an encouragement to stay in the fight and to never quit.

In this episode you will hear:

• If you’re gonna laugh at other people, you’d better be able to laugh at your damn self.

• I don’t think about all the things I went through in my past. It’s a huge form of therapy for me not to.

• Every day is a grind.

• There are “character-building” days – you gotta recognize it, you gotta work on it, and you gotta build on it.

• I have an older sister, so I did a lot of Barbie doll shit when I was young.

• We’re more comfortable around our type of people because we have experienced some of the same things.

• Non-stop fuckery – I had to have that.

• If you knew what your tax dollars really went to, you wouldn’t pay fuckin’ taxes.

• I was a cop, when you could still be an effective police officer, and you didn’t have cell phone cameras ruining your life. You could actually go out and do your job.

• There’s consequences to our actions, whether in law-enforcement or a civilian.

• When the military deploys and they go over, they leave that shit over there. They bring some of that back, but they don’t have to live in the environment that fucked them up.

• You can’t un-see, or un-taste, or un-smell a lot of things you go through in life.