Fernando joins the GRABLIVES Podcast for a powerful conversation on faith, fatherhood, discipline, and what it truly means to lead from the front as a modern man. As a firefighter, husband, father, and creator of Next Level Dad Fitness, Fernando shares how fitness is more than aesthetics — it’s a vehicle for building resilience, integrity, spiritual grounding, and leadership within the home.

This episode dives into the balance between strength and presence, how men can reclaim discipline in a distracted world, and why taking care of your body directly impacts how you show up for your wife, children, career, and purpose. Fernando breaks down practical strategies around fat loss, meal preparation, consistency, mindset, and daily habits, while also speaking on the deeper mission of becoming the type of man your family can rely on.

This is a conversation for fathers, firefighters, husbands, and men searching for a higher level of accountability, structure, and meaning in their lives.

Faith is the foundation. Family is the reason. Fitness is the vehicle.

In Episode 92, we sit down with Company Officer Michael Elhihi, creator of Owning the Front Seat: The Promotional Playbook for Aspiring Fire Officers and Preparing for the Test, Building for the Seat—but this conversation goes far beyond passing a test or earning a bugle. This is about who you become before you ever sit in the front seat. Michael breaks down the difference between chasing rank and earning leadership through character, discipline, and values. Because the truth is, the fireground doesn’t create leaders—it reveals them. And what it reveals is built long before the tones ever drop. We get into what it really means to prepare—not just tactically, but internally. How your habits, your integrity, and your ability to lead your own life will dictate how you lead a crew, a family, and yourself under pressure. This episode challenges the idea that leadership starts with promotion. Instead, it reframes it as something deeper:

Leadership starts in your daily decisions, your standards, and your willingness to own your life completely.

From the station to the home front to your internal world—this is a blueprint for becoming the kind of leader people trust when it matters most. If you’re looking to promote, already wearing the badge, or simply want to lead your life at a higher level, this one is for you.

Frontseat Academy links:
Frontseat Academy

What if the most powerful tool for human performance… wasn’t a supplement, but the smallest molecule in the universe?

In this episode, we sit down with hydrogen water expert Shayne McCarthy to break down the science and real-world impact of molecular hydrogen on the human body. From reducing oxidative stress to enhancing cellular function, Shayne explains how hydrogen works at a foundational level to support recovery, energy, and long-term health.

This conversation goes beyond surface-level wellness trends. We dive into how hydrogen interacts with the body’s natural systems, why it’s gaining traction among high performers, and what most people are missing when it comes to true cellular optimization.

If you’re looking to sharpen your edge, recover faster, and understand what’s really happening inside your body… this episode opens the door.

Explore more of Shayne’s work at H2 Water Experts

In this episode, we sit down with Wolf Purnananda Jowers—a transformation specialist, Master Kambo Practitioner, and ayahuasca facilitator—whose work lives at the intersection of ancient medicine and modern human evolution.

This conversation dives deep into his Diamond Heart Project, a powerful framework for personal growth designed to realign your life around the intelligence of the heart. Not the poetic idea of the heart… but the operating system beneath identity, patterns, and perception.

Wolf breaks down how most people are unknowingly living from conditioned loops—reacting, surviving, repeating—while the heart offers a different axis entirely: one of clarity, presence, and truth. Through his work with plant medicine and integration practices, he shares how individuals can begin to dissolve those patterns and reshape their internal world… which ultimately reshapes their external reality.

We explore:

This one isn’t surface-level. It’s about stepping out of autopilot and into authorship of your life.

Returning guest Nathan Nussbaum, founder of MovMed and author of From Stress to Strong, is back on the GrabLives Podcast to go deeper into what it really takes to rebuild the body after injury, chronic stress, and nervous system overload.

Raised in a family rooted in fitness, Nathan’s early life revolved around movement, strength, and performance. But injuries and life stress eventually took their toll, forcing him to confront the gap between traditional fitness and true healing. What followed was years of mentorship, self-experimentation, and hands-on application that reshaped his entire understanding of how the body adapts, compensates, and ultimately heals.

In this conversation, Nathan breaks down how stress physically changes the body, how unresolved tension can keep people stuck in cycles of pain, and what it actually means to become strong again. He explains why strength isn’t just about muscles, but about restoring trust, coordination, and resilience within the nervous system.

For first responders and anyone living under constant pressure, this episode offers a powerful perspective on recovery, adaptation, and long-term durability. Nathan shares lessons from his own journey and his work with others, showing how movement can become a tool not just for performance, but for reclaiming control over your health and your life.

This is a conversation about transformation, ownership, and what becomes possible when you stop chasing symptoms and start rebuilding the system.

In Episode 89 of GrabLives, we sit down with Chance Burles, co-host of The Collective Podcast and a retired Canadian veteran, to unpack the silent battles that follow service. This conversation goes beyond surface-level resilience and dives straight into the psychological and emotional terrain that many operators, first responders, and high performers quietly navigate. Chance shares his journey through depression, identity loss, and the recalibration process that comes after stepping away from a life built on structure, intensity, and purpose. We explore how podcasting became more than just a platform for him—it became a tool for reflection, growth, and rebuilding. At the core of The Collective is a mission rooted in action: consistent, intentional effort toward developing a growth mindset. But what does that actually look like when you’re in the trenches of your own mind?

Tim Fisher, firefighter engineer with the Orange County Fire Authority and host of the Let’s Go Podcast, steps into a conversation that goes far beyond the fireground.

This episode dives into the hidden layers of the job — the grief that doesn’t get processed, the weight that gets buried, and the slow drift into behaviors that don’t reflect the man in the mirror. Tim opens up about the moment everything caught up to him — when he looked at himself and didn’t recognize who he had become. We talk about the silent accumulation of trauma, the identity built around the badge, and what happens when that identity starts to crack. More importantly, we explore what it takes to take ownership, face yourself fully, and begin rebuilding from a place of truth. This conversation is for every firefighter, first responder, or man carrying weight in silence — the ones who show up for everyone else, but haven’t yet turned inward.If you’ve ever felt disconnected from yourself, stuck in patterns you can’t explain, or unsure how you got here… this one hits home.

In this episode of the GrabLives Podcast, we sit down with Chris Lee, former Green Beret and U.S. Army Special Operations veteran, to explore the battle that doesn’t end when you come home.

This conversation goes beyond deployments and into the unseen war—hypervigilance, identity, and the internal patterns that follow you long after the mission is over. Chris breaks down what it’s like to live in a constant state of alertness, and how that same wiring can either trap you… or become the gateway to transformation.

We dive deep into the connection between the mind and the heart, and why true resilience isn’t just about toughness—it’s about awareness, curiosity, and the willingness to face what’s underneath. This is a conversation about evolving beyond old identities, letting go of outdated versions of yourself, and stepping into who you’re becoming.

If you’ve ever felt stuck between who you were and who you know you’re meant to be, this one hits.

In this returning episode of GrabLives, Jon sits down again with Dani Fontaine, a pioneering voice in the modern cannabis and hemp movement. Dani is an endocannabinoid researcher, neurotherapist, entrepreneur, and plant-medicine advocate whose work explores how cannabis interacts with the body’s internal signaling systems.

Dani’s journey began on the front lines of Colorado’s cannabis legalization. She founded early edible companies and later co-founded the Colorado Hemp Project, helping launch one of the first licensed legal hemp farms in the United States. From there she built Nature’s Root, creating plant-based formulations such as pain-relieving salves and therapeutic hemp products used in spas and wellness clinics around the world.

In this conversation, Dani dives deep into the Endocannabinoid System, the vast receptor network responsible for regulating pain, mood, sleep, inflammation, and overall balance in the human body. Researchers describe this system as a central communication network that helps maintain physiological homeostasis across nearly every organ system.

But Dani’s work goes even further. She explores how genetic mutations and SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms)can influence detox pathways, metabolism, and how individuals respond to cannabis. Some genetic variants can impair natural detoxification systems, which is why personalized approaches to plant medicine and cannabinoid therapy are becoming increasingly important.

Together, Jon and Dani explore:

• The science and mystery of the endocannabinoid system
• How cannabis interacts with the body’s receptor networks
• Why some people respond differently to cannabinoids based on genetics
• How DNA testing can reveal mutations affecting detox and metabolism
• The future of personalized medicine through cannabis and plant compounds
• How nature, environment, and biology intersect in human healing

From pioneering the hemp industry to exploring the genetic blueprint of human health, Dani Fontaine continues to push the boundaries of how we understand cannabis, biology, and the body’s innate intelligence.

This conversation goes far beyond cannabis culture — into the deeper biology of how plants, genes, and consciousness interact inside the human system.

What are we actually observing when we say we are conscious?

In this episode of GrabLives, Jon sits down with Shaun Taylor, a 62-year-old former Canadian Tier 1 Special Operations operator, high-performance race coach, 24-hour solo mountain bike world champion, martial artist, author, and co-host of the The Collective Podcast.

This conversation moves far beyond tactics, performance, or endurance. Instead, Jon and Shaun explore the deeper question beneath human performance:

What is consciousness, and who is the one observing it?

Drawing from decades in elite special operations, extreme endurance sports, martial arts, and philosophical inquiry, Shaun shares how high-stakes environments force a person to confront awareness itself. When the noise of the world fades and survival sharpens the mind, a different layer of perception emerges.

Together they unpack:

• The relationship between awareness and identity
• Why observing thoughts changes how the mind operates
• The difference between the thinking mind and the witnessing mind
• How extreme environments reveal deeper layers of consciousness
• Whether consciousness is produced by the brain or something the brain tunes into

From battlefield mindset to 24-hour endurance racing to philosophical inquiry, Shaun brings a rare perspective on what it means to truly observe reality and understand the mind behind the experience.

This episode explores the frontier where performance, awareness, and consciousness intersect.