Tune in to our latest podcast episode where we explore the multifaceted world of law enforcement, shedding light on the unique challenges and experiences officers face daily. This conversation takes you inside the lives of those who serve and protect, revealing how politics influence the profession, the critical role of community engagement and grassroots movements, and the profound effects of trauma on first responders.We also take a closer look at Protectors Peak, an innovative retreat center nestled in Idaho, dedicated to supporting and healing first responders, military veterans, pastors, and missionaries. Join Nate Harder, the founder of Protectors Peak, as he shares his inspiring journey of creating this sanctuary and the transformative impact it has had on its participants. Learn about the center’s focus on faith, trauma recovery, and fostering meaningful connections among those with shared experiences.Discover how Protectors Peak is making a difference through private grants, donations, and partnerships, and hear firsthand accounts of how these retreats have become pivotal, life-changing experiences for attendees. This episode not only highlights the invaluable work of Protectors Peak but also emphasizes the supportive community in North Idaho that backs law enforcement, offering a beacon of hope and a path toward healing and renewed purpose.Whether you’re in law enforcement, support someone who is, or simply wish to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and victories within this field, this episode offers compelling insights and stories of resilience and community support. Join us for this enlightening conversation and get a glimpse into the world of those who dedicate their lives to serving others.Protectors Peakhttps://www.protectorspeak.com/Donate: https://www.protectorspeak.com/donateIf you’re thinking about moving to North Idaho be sure to give us a call, shoot us a text, send us an email, or schedule a Zoom call. We’d love to help you make a smooth move to North Idaho!
NATE HARDER (00:00.59)
Yeah, I mean just it wrecks it. There’s there’s no no replacing experience on the street, right? Hopefully my voice doesn’t go out is getting getting that through a lot. Yes, about 20 minutes. I always starts getting a little fry. All right. We can deal with that. Just make sure that microphone. OK. Yeah, even talking to some of those agents, it was very similar if they came from this background.
I’m trying to give them my experience, because I’ll talk a lot about street cop stuff and drugs. Drugs has been my focus out here. I’m a…
They made me an expert witness to testifying drug cases all over. But man, I love that stuff. Because drugs are at the crux of so much of our crime. I’m glad to hear that because so many guys are just kind of surrendering. You know, because not here, especially in Minnesota. I mean, it’s there’s a good chance you’re going to jail. I get that, though. Like, look at what happened. Look at what’s happened. And honestly, that’s one of the biggest adjustments for like if you’re out there and you’re a Cali cop and you’re looking to move up here or we have Minnesota that’s come over here laterals. And the way we police is different.
It’s it takes an adjustment because if you’ve already succumbed to that and you’re just like, you know, you’ve you’ve kind of passed it and you no longer want to do it. Same place because we want you to be cops here. We want you to go out and pursue felons that are victimizing the rest of our community. And this was a kind of a stretch for me, too, when I came from Texas, Washington and Texas, everybody goes to jail for everything. Right. And then there’s Washington law. And that was different. But, you know, that was a long time ago. Still, it’s got to be a lot worse now. Yeah.
How do you, you need to get that into like a recruiting thing? Because I think there’s a lot of guys out. I mean, I’ve had that guy we talked to in Texas, that cop down there. Like, there’s a lot of people that are tired of not being able to do the job that they sign up for. And if you can recruit specifically for that, hey, come to Idaho, come to Coeur d ‘Alene. Like, we still do it the old way. We still do police work. Yeah. That’s the ad right there. That’s the ad. I think cops, they want that so bad. Like right now, we used to, my agency had a $10 ,000 hire in.
NATE HARDER (02:05.358)
And there’s we had a couple of in the metro 15 ,000. Nobody cares. Yeah, nobody. We didn’t get into this job. You know, you know, the raising, you know, huge amount of money. We wanted to live comfortably. Yeah, but we did it for honor. Make it a difference in our community. And how do we make a difference in our community? You know, not the dancing crap or you know the weirdness that, you know, embarrasses the badge. It’s putting bad guys in jail. Yes. And if we were able to do that, man, we.
there would be no more recruiting crisis. Right. Police work great again. Yeah. Go back to what we used to do. Yes. That’s I think that’s the root of the problem for everybody in the hiring problem. The hiring freeze right now. Not the hiring freeze. You know I’m talking about the hiring problem right now. That is the root cause of it is like that honor is gone. Like you can’t do the job and not worry about getting sued, put in jail or whatever else like that. If that is always on the back of your mind, it makes it very hard to do this job. Well, that’s the truth, man. Like.
Everybody thinks the stress associated with law enforcement is because we’re going to end up in this pile of brass hail of gunfire. That’s the threat and that’s the danger. That’s what everybody’s stressed about. Men, that ain’t it. It’s the follow on after an incident goes viral on YouTube where you may or may not in that split second moment.
made a different decision that may or may not have yielded a different outcome, but now all of a sudden they’re threatening your house and your livelihood and your family, and you’re just getting eviscerated online by that. That kills more cops than bullets. Yeah. absolutely. A long stressor, you climb into a bottle, that’s killing more cops. I’ve got a buddy on the Washington side that works for a big department over there, and he, a few years ago, got in an on -duty crash, not at fault.
other party ran a stop sign. He was going above the speed limit, you know, as we do to get to a call that’s not code three and T bones this person injures them. They prosecuted him, put arrested him, lost his job, ended up getting it back. And now they’re coming after his peace officer powers. They want to decertify him several years after this happened. So that like he’s been fighting that for that entire time. It’s such a crock of shit. And I cannot believe it. And imagine, I think it’s like anybody else. And if you make a mistake, I mean, our jobs under the microscope, it’s just
NATE HARDER (04:16.046)
nature of it but if you make a mistake I think most people accept accountability especially cops like patrol dudes are the best to be like yo sergeant I jacked that up. Yeah. Sergeant I’d rather tell you this right now than have you find out afterwards I messed this up but imagine the long stress associated with going through a three or four year long civil right you know investigation and having different people and then every time it pops back up in the media you relive it and then your kids relive it and then they find out in school you know whatever’s going on.
That sucks. And I have such a unique experience because I’ve only been a cop in Idaho. And our citizens here are so supportive. It’s funny to watch it online because one person will get on and start pasting law enforcement and they just get eaten. Yeah, not here, people. No, they get chewed on. Yeah, that’d be the share. You know what? I’ll do my recruiting spiel right now. If you are out there and you’re at an agency where the citizens are apathetic to law enforcement, man, come out here and go on a ride.
I won’t even sell it to you and tell you with my own words. Just come out and go on a ride and see how the citizens.
interact with you, see how they speak with you on the field, see how they thank you for your service, man. There’s still places like that out there. So you’re saying the 10 -year -olds in the bad part of town don’t flip you off every time you drive by? Not all the time. They’re just telling you, number one. It’s all perspective right there. Is that what it is? OK, cool. Only if they know me and only if I’ve coached them before. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. You know, it’s so different. I started in 96. I can remember chasing a guy in Texas through a neighborhood where one guy squirted the dude with a hose.
as he went by another guy tackled him. Yeah. Now it’s everyone has the cell phone. But we literally have gone from, you know, late 90s 2000s where people are doing police work and I can I talked to other guys that have retired too. And I never worried about going to jail. It really my career unless you cross that line. You know, you’re you’re you’re a bad cop that stole you’re on the take. Yeah, something like that. But I mean, as far as now we the reality and some of these well, I’m not even a calm left wing states, they’re Marxist states, you know, wash.
NATE HARDER (06:18.158)
in Minnesota, it is a very real possibility for you going to jail, even though you are within policy and within state law. And that’s scary. And that’s one of those things where how do you recruit for that? Hey, come do this job, we’re gonna give you a crap ton of money. But you’re probably going to jail and you’ll be dishonored and your family’s name ruined. You don’t have to sign me up. Yeah, you don’t have to look far to see where that’s happened. We just talked about it. And I’m not even gonna feel bad saying it. I’ve
I knew him when I was an explorer in Spokane, Carl Thompson. Carl Thompson is a national hero. He’s a Bronze Star recipient in Vietnam. And if you look into that case, I’d encourage you to do it. I’m not gonna talk about any details, but man, that was a federal witch hunt. That entire DOJ investigation was a federal witch hunt. And that’s somebody that never went in there with any sort of intent or malice or any of the other elements that we have to prove for any other criminals. But it just goes back to the way our society is trying to.
criminalized non criminal behavior and decriminalized criminal behavior. And I have to piggyback on that. I worked with him and I can’t think of a guy that’s done more for his country. It was a better guy was a great dad, father, husband, just a mentor. That’s the best word I could use for him is he was the guy was a mentor. There’s so many different officers and he was, you know, I think as far as people look at that and go, if that happened to him, that can happen to me. Yes, Minnesota right now, a true state trooper has been charged with murder.
As he was being drugged, you know, the traffic stop with three troopers drugs, gun felony warrants guy took off the troopers being drugged. He shoots and kills the guy charged with murder. How I can’t wrap my brain around that. So how do you recruit in an atmosphere like that? Right. Well, you know, just take the Twin Cities in specific and it’s it’s it’s bizarre because they just my gosh, why can’t we get officers? And you have to are you are you serious? Why would you do that job right there?
And it’s so important because we have to have people do this job. We have to. What happens if people stop serving in our military, stop serving as first responders, our country will implode. And it’s so many people, boy, you know, I can’t do anything. Apathy is kind of what’s got us here. And your average citizen can still support the police, vote the correct way, and stop giving lip service. Because if you want to be protected,
NATE HARDER (08:39.822)
We’re kind of at a crossroads in our country right now as far as this is these people these protectors They’re going to go away if they’re not supported, right? Yeah, I mean they are going away It’s like seems in huge numbers. I had a guy call me yesterday that works for the same department I used to work for and he’s like, hey man, like I want to get no he’s already in real estate But he’s like asked me I don’t even know him but we met yesterday and you know He’s like, how’s it being out of being a cop and doing real estate? Like I want to do that full -time, but I’m nervous about leaving the pension trap, you know
And he’s just like he’s done and there’s so many of those guys out there and it’s a shame because I don’t know like where do we go from here?
I don’t know, gets real bad first. I think it’s a pendulum, man. I mean, it tends to, and it’s so different now though. We used to almost, that pendulum would swing as a society kind of, but now there’s such a huge gap between one city and another. yeah, I grew up in Spokane so I can talk.
school downtown Lewis Clark, right? But Spokane has changed so much in the last 20 or 25 years. You can feel it when you drive from Idaho to Spokane. You’re like, yeah, Spokane is a little different, but you decriminalized a lot of the criminal behavior. And that’s why we’re in such a funky geographic spot because Idaho, man, we don’t put up with all that. But it keeps a lot of it on the other side of the border. So I think one community at a time, one community is intolerant of it and their citizens are so
supportive of proactive law enforcement. And then you can see the difference when we have people moving here. What’s one of their number one factors in moving? Crime? Crime. Safety. Safety. Where am I going to raise my kids? Relative safety and intolerance of predatory criminals, bro. And maybe this starts as these little grassroot movements. We all just came from the Patriot poor downtown.
NATE HARDER (10:27.566)
at Life Public House every Wednesday from 8 to 10 by the way if you’re in town and you come from that background come hit us up. Awesome group and a lot of fun. The conversation for a large chunk of it was around this you know how as a group and this group consists of you know veterans and first responders how can we impact our community for a better way like what can we actually do and I mean it was a great conversation there’s a lot of good input there and maybe that’s it maybe you know starting groups like this all around because it’s
of veterans and first responders both retired and current that can get together like this and start brainstorming ideas because maybe that’s the key. I don’t know. I loved hearing everything that happened. I mean one of the guys that said hey you can’t just get into a frontal assault with somebody that completely differs in opinions from you. You gotta establish kind of a relationship first and you know boy as a police chief with my council that was so incredibly left -wing to the point of being Marxist I couldn’t just go right at him. I stood my ground. I stood for what I stood for.
However, I had to maintain just kind of friendship with them first. And by the time I retired, these people were at least centrist, where they would listen to a rationale, where just because so many of these things are irrational reactions from these people. And one of the things that I found interesting about the work that you did, and I think you did a great job of that,
Minneapolis, all the twin cities in that area, we’re using the mob.
Angeles. And you step back and go, wow, those are such wonderful places to live right now. Well, no, they’re not. Well, exactly. So why are we using their model of crime, you know, decriminalizing drugs? And I would rather use a model like Coeur d ‘Alene, Idaho, where you’re doing proactive police work, people wave at the police with all five fingers. People want to be a police officer, they want to live and you guys hit the nail on the head. There’s a bit of a veil, kind of a darkness. Once you get into Washington, you see the legalization of drugs and just their policies, it kills.
NATE HARDER (12:18.862)
It’s kind of policy of death in these left -wing areas. Perfect example of that. And when you start talking about politics and how you had to slowly like make it inception. So it’s their idea to do these things, right? We all, I’m part of the board. Sometimes you got to do that, right? That’s just part of the game. But I laughed watching Spokane County. You guys watch live PD at all. That was the thing. So live PD was like cops. A &E did it, but they would follow cops and they’d have body cam. Man, it was a fun show to watch. And Spokane County was on there all the time. Some great cops over there. I went to…
Academy with a bunch of them. There’s some really, really good guys and gals over there busting it. But it made Spokane County look like Spokane County. And all of a sudden, you got all this pushback from people going, we need to get out of this. Why are we letting them do live PD in Spokane County? Look what it’s making our city look like. Well, your policies, the city actually looks like that. It was a very realistic respect.
what it looks like. Your city is making your city look bad. Exactly. That your words, your words are not going to overpower what people are observing with their own eyes. Right? So it’s funny that, hey, let’s not try to correct that. Let’s just keep trying to hide it. You know, one of the best quotes on that, and I used on my council all the time from William Bennett, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Yeah, so many times when you just you pull the curtain back and people get to see what’s actually going on. They’re like, holy Toledo, is this really what’s going on? Yeah, this is what goes on in your community.
That’s a great quote. That is a great quote. Now just, you know, it gets into media and what actually gets sampled and what gets put out to the public. That’s why I love grassroots stuff like North Idaho News, because it’s fairly unfiltered, right? Like you’re getting direct info out to the people, which is great. And it’s important to be able to have that discourse. Like, you know, if we’re all of the same belief, then we’re in just this echo chamber and we’re, you know, that runs the risk of creating these insane ideas. And I think, you know,
either side to the far left and to the far right are both guilty of that, where we need to be able to get together and have some discourse and not lose emotional control because, you know, I’ll call it corporate media, not anything else, but like they are 100 % have an agenda to drive a wedge in between both sides and create that. And it’s, you know, I feel it within my own family. I know a lot of guys talked about that today at the Patriot Pour, but you know, my parents, a lot of my family are very liberal and like we cannot have certain conversations because…
NATE HARDER (14:37.39)
everybody loses emotional control. And I try, damn it. I try. But if it’s my mom and maybe it’s like, cause I out of love, I’m concerned about the way they believe and what they’re doing or what they’re not seeing that I lose my control and I’m sad to admit it. But so we just avoid it. And that’s not the right answer. But no, you know, as far as I loved, just the fact that we talk about engaging and not being a man or a woman of apathy. And, you know, like, at our retreats, a lot of times, you know, at Protector’s Peak, we talk about beware the man of apathy.
And especially that patriot poor, there’s military, there’s first responders, that is such an awesome wealth of knowledge. And you need to get into politics, you need to get into your local school boards, you need to bring that experience into public government. Because if you don’t, guess what the people you don’t want in there are going to be the only ones that engage with this. And it’s kind of like you know, sharing politics is almost like sharing my faith because I’m very vocal about my faith, but I don’t shove it down people’s throats. Right.
And the same thing with my politics, you know, I try to establish a relationship with people first, and but talk to them. But it doesn’t mean I don’t stand my ground. And I stand for what’s right, you know, both, you know, as a conservative and also on biblical truths, I don’t have to shove it down your throat, but I am not going to wave or be an apathetic person, because I really do think we are where we are because of apathy. Break that down a little more. Like, what does that mean? Well, you know, just
You can get along with somebody, you know, by not insulting them, but still stand your ground on some of these issues. And I think we’ve run away from them. You know, I have to look through some self reflecting, you know, all these years in police work and you know, military before that, and I never served on the school board. Well, you know what, if you’re not willing to do that, then stop complaining about it. And I’m guilty of that. Easy to complain about it. You know, and that’s just the thing I’m anti complaining, you know, like, I don’t like where our country is. But I want to do something about that. Yeah.
And, you know, like, one of my favorite verses in the Bible, it says, here, my Lord, send me and I kind of live my life that way. I’m not going to complain about it. I’m going to do something about it. When you know, with law enforcement, the stresses and the traumas and stuff, I wasn’t going to sit back and complain about it. I wanted to start that nonprofit of protect your speak. I want to do something about it. Yeah. And I love that attitude with politics to you know, anybody can sit and gripe, come up with a solution, establish some relationships and do something about it.
NATE HARDER (17:03.278)
in a tactful manner. Yeah. Do you think in your opinion, do you think apathy is on the rise overall? absolutely. Because we’re so polarized. And also just think about nowadays also, if you disagree with somebody, what are they going to say? You’re racist. You’re a misogynist. And they throw all these different labels. No, I just actually disagree with you. It doesn’t make me any of those things. And so many people are so afraid to be labeled a misogynist or racist, you know, or just insert whatever.
you know, leftist thing they want to label you. Microaggression. Yeah, microaggression. I don’t even know what that means. You know, it’s… I prefer macroaggressions, honestly, personally. What does that mean? But, you know, people are so… my gosh, they’re gonna think I’m this or that. Who cares? Yeah. You’re not. So who cares? I’ve found as I get older and maybe I’ve just been putting more thought into these things in the past. I hadn’t. It’s like solidifying my position on that and making me more able to be vocal about it. You know, as a younger man, I just didn’t…
I didn’t think about it. I should have and I wish I had but you know, I didn’t so I had very little opinions on anything so maybe I was guilty of apathy and now you know, I’m feeling like okay, you know, I have kids that are older like the world is important to me. I can see farther into the future and what I want it to be and now I’m like, okay, I’m more willing to take a stand for the things that I believe now. I understand what I believe even more at times. I didn’t even know what I believe just didn’t think about it. But as a young man, we talked about this the other day. Talked to a guy he did.
He was 14 years Army, he was a tank commander and he’s an officer at Coeur d ‘Alene, one of our supervisors. And man, when we were young though, we were just too busy surviving. Like we’d fallen into this, hey, you’re supposed to be working and working hard. And we were either overseas or underwater or on patrol or just trying to figure it out and make it right. And it just seems like there were some things, there were some bad actors in the backfield, right behind us that were pulling some strings and setting this whole thing up.
while we were busy, right? And then you get a little older and you’re watching some of the stuff that’s being pushed on kids in schools, some of these things that were happening all while we were busy. And you know, it is easy to get, I’ve recognized it myself, it’s easy to get apathetic sometimes with what’s going on in the country. Cause you’re like, whatever, elections don’t matter. You know, there’s enough stuff out there to make you think somewhat legitimately in some States. Maybe that wasn’t very legitimate in this last one, right? But you know, it’s easy to say none of, none of what I do matters, but.
NATE HARDER (19:28.622)
I think retired people fall into that trap and you hit the nail on the head. Yeah, I was too busy living life. And then when you retire after these service occupations, so many guys want to go to, you know, grow the giant beard and go live in the middle of the woods. When I know you can do that, it’s not a roundup on. But you owe it to these guys that are still standing on the fence for you. You know, raising those families, they’re still in their 20s and 30s. They’re on that fence line for you. They’re defending your communities. You need to reengage and bring your experience from the military from
police work first responder into our society because there is a trap of you know, okay, I’m just gonna go into the sunset right now and I’m gonna enjoy life. I still enjoy life. But guess what? You owe it to the guys that are still active right now to engage and have their back because you’re right. When you’re in your 20s, man, you’re working, you know, probably, you know, I can remember working in my normal shift and working hurricane harbors, six flags, all that, just to get money for the kids. You know, it
I kind of do need somebody else to be that voice for me. Right. And you know, when I’m sitting in the Patriot board, the amount of experience in that room, I don’t know, there’s 25 guys in there today and, you know, multiple 30 year retired cops, firefighters, veterans who went, you know, full length of service and retired like that. That amount of experience is unbelievable. And that exists in every community out there. It’s like just a matter of getting them together. Right. And untapped. And we just talked about today. It’s like.
Gosh, what a movement with them. If we are all pushing towards this same thing and everybody buys in from these different spheres of influence towards getting this one thing, it just seems like that’s how you move mountains. And I didn’t see group think what you were talking about. There was a couple different ideas. I’ll probably offend somebody here, so sorry. Go for it. I can remember when I was in college, I got an F minus on a paper once. But I offended my teachers what happened.
really badly. But it was called the social degeneration of France. And France fought two world wars, World War One, World War Two, they lost the majority of their good young men. And the rest that fought those wars, man, they were, they were spent, they disengaged from politics. Who was France left to start over with again, the guys that avoided Yeah, you know, service, service. And that’s what they you know, France didn’t used to be the country that they are.
NATE HARDER (21:52.494)
And you can insert like 6 ,000 French jokes right here, but I won’t. But as far as they had to rebuild with that and those people. And that’s what my whole paper was about. And she didn’t like that. I later got that overturned to an A by the Dean of History there. But as far as she just she was French, by the way. So that was probably wasn’t that’s probably not the best choice. But you know, it’s supported. And I never want to see that where our society, everyone that served is so tired that they don’t want to be involved. But man, I am seeing similarities in that when you said that I’m like, damn, like.
That’s kind of where we’re at. Because a lot of guys are just fed up. They’re fed up with no support and they’re just done walking away. So what do you focus on? It’s like your own little circle and everybody else can F off. You know what I mean? Your own little circle and everybody, especially if you’re living somewhere that has no support for you whatsoever. That’s tough. I see that a lot with cops coming out of big cities, man, where they just got beaten down. It sucks. It sucks. Yeah. You know, you don’t see it. It’s kind of fun to be in this North Idaho area where you go to Walmart.
And I live in the middle of nowhere. So, you know, come to the city is kind of fun right now. But I’ll see a guy like cop, cop, cop, everywhere. I know it’s awesome. It’s just I showed up in uniform this morning. That wasn’t that hard. All right. Like everywhere you can. And you can, you know, you could spark up a conversation because they’re usually wearing some piece of clothing or something or, you know, or that’s the bearing, whatever. But, you know, it’s like, hey, you know, who do you work for? And it’s like immediate. cool. There’s another good connection. Like, what a great person. That’s what I love about it up here, honestly. And I think it’s a healthier.
just as far as first responders military, it’s healthier here in North Idaho than anywhere just because of that support network. Yeah. Whereas you know, in Minnesota has to be almost underground. Yeah, same in California. Yeah, it’s you have to have under you know, it’s in one of the reasons you know, the huge stresses in retired law enforcement and military is isolation. Yeah, where they get so fed up, they just want to go live by themselves somewhere in the middle of nowhere. But that’s when you start circling the drain is when you just walk away from that support network and that support network is alive and well in North Idaho.
Yeah, this is probably a good segue. I never even introduced you by the way. This is Nate Harder, by the way. Yeah, we just started talking and he records. I guess I just started ranting. I know, no, no, no, no. The gold. So I’m very sneaky now with when I start the recording because the gold is in these. That’s why I was like, hey, put the headphones on. I knew you guys would start talking and I’ll just do my thing and then hit record. You won’t even know because the gold is in those initial conversations when you don’t even know I’m recording it. But and then I just didn’t get a chance to introduce you. But Nate Harder, he runs Protectors Peak in Calder.
NATE HARDER (24:19.694)
Yep. Yeah. So it’s about an hour and a half south of Coeur d ‘Alene. Yeah, right on the St. Joe River. And it’s a retreat for first responders. You guys service veterans as well? Yeah. First responders, military veterans and pastors and missionaries. Okay. I want to dive into that, but I also kind of want to touch on your background and like how you got a passion in that. Cause I know you have some pretty traumatic incidences in your career that kind of drove you on that path and made it a calling for you. Well, you know, it’s a
I firmly believe God brings people through suffering so they can help others through it as well. And that’s kind of, you know, I got injured pretty severely several times in my career. That’s why I have all this titanium in my spine right now. A lot of fun. Which is why he won’t do jiu -jitsu with me. I’ve tried. Sorry. Yeah, that’s I miss that so much. You know, my wife doesn’t understand that. You know, hundreds. Gosh, it feels good to get punched in the face every once in a while. And I get it. And growing up playing hockey, too, you know, I just I miss that. But anyway, just going through, I’ve been a cop in a couple of different places throughout the U .S. and.
just you guys know there’s always that cop that steps in it. That was me. Yeah. And just I went through quite a few shootings early in my career. And in 2001, I had I switched places with my best friend. I went to Academy of the guy. We call those a shit magnet. You were a shit magnet. That’s it, man. All right, cool. But I switched places with him. He got shot in the face. I didn’t. And that was a big thing. A lot of survivors guilt. And then actually, after seven years, I was officer for the year.
Two years in a row of 1 ,000 officers. That was quite an accomplishment. And people at NCI was miserable, just miserable. And after that seventh year, eventually, that’s when I lateraled to Spokane. I just couldn’t take it anymore. And there was nothing like peer support back then. There was no counselors. You would go to some weird dude that, you know, it’s like some Sigmund Freud guy that the agency actually has full, you know, nobody likes him. It has like BO and chain smokes, you know, and you’re…
you go in there and you’re like, Yep, yep, yep. Bye. And that’s it. And they okay, you’re back on duty. That’s kind of what we had. And I was really struggling and people didn’t see that. And it was one of those things where, you know, like, like I told you before, I play hockey, you know, we, we got a whole state of Texas team together to go play in Innsbruck, Austria, and the police Olympics. And I must have gotten a fight every game. And my wife took me aside once she’s like, after I got in a fight with an NYPD guy that she was sitting next to his wife. So that’s thanks. Sorry, hon. Cheers.
NATE HARDER (26:40.782)
But you know, with New Yorkers, it’s nothing personal. You’re laughing with these guys right afterwards. But my wife is like, why are you so angry? Why are you so angry? And that was kind of a, it was a fork in the road for me. And I really was angry. And I had heard some people talk to me, that dude’s pissed off at life. He’s always angry. And I thought, you know, holy crap, what have I become? And that’s not the dad I wanted to be. And that’s when, you know, that’s when I got real with my faith.
And it’s, I, you know, surrounded my, have you ever heard the expression, it’s hard to soar the Eagles when you’re with a bunch of turkeys? Yeah. And one verse that really got me was Proverbs 27 17 is iron sharpens iron. So one man sharpens another. And somebody shared that verse with me and I like, I’m not hanging out with the guys, I probably should. You know, if these are the guys that just drink all the time, is this healthy for my family? This is who I want to be. And I had to step back and see, you know, this is not the guy I want to be. And I’m very thankful God puts the right people in my life.
that sharpened me at that time. And then it’s, you know, it changed my life. And that’s it made me you know what, I don’t think everybody has gotten this in police work or in the military. I didn’t they didn’t have that awesome support network to come sharpen each other and really help you through you know, through these times. And so I thought, and my wife as well, you know what, to save our marriage, it saved me. I want to do this for other people. And so we really started getting you know what we should we should do this, we should get like a cabin or something and
just have it available to officers and also I just kind of grew. You know, it’s we started doing this five years ago. Three having retreats, but me and my wife actually purchased land ourselves in near Mullen and we were going to slowly build on that and I’m a bit of a geek. So I start I have to do like step ABCD and I started looking at business models of a Christian guest ranch for officers and I came across. Yeah, article in the Saint Mary’s Times.
of a lady who lives in Post Falls now who had run a retreat center for 25 years. She wrote a book on it. And so I linked in with her, got her book, and then ended up, I’d already formed my nonprofit. We were slowly going to start doing this in Idaho. And it just ended up that guy that was on my nonprofit was really good friends with her. And all of a sudden, she calls me out of the blue. And I had this five -year model, six -year model. And after that phone call, all of a sudden, that five -year model became a.
NATE HARDER (29:05.006)
We got a long term lease on an existing facility. Let’s do this like right now. George Floyd riots just happened. We had so many guys that were hurting. And I was like, well, we need to you know what God was just telling me, hey, grab these guys and go out there. So within a month and a half, this retreat center hadn’t had people in like two or three years. There was like, you know, an inch thick of flies in the wall. And it was pretty gross. Dead trees everywhere. I still had enough SPD contacts and people we know.
We had just cops and military guys just descend on this place like ants and got it ready. And within that month of that phone call, and then we had that first retreat. And I knew this is exactly where God wants me to do this kind of work, because the Floyd riots, these guys were spent. We had a bunch of third precinct guys that had been trapped on that roof. And what you see in the media isn’t what happened. They call it protesters. There was no protesters. There were rioters. These guys were taking rounds up there. And then they had a.
rappel down the backside and run three blocks to a bus that was going to evacuate them. That’s sketch. And that was on purpose. And it’s disgraceful. If you want to ever see the real version of the George Floyd, Alpha News has something called the fall of Minneapolis. 5 million views. I highly encourage people to look at that. But have you ever watched real quick? Have you ever watched Seattle is dying? Yep. I shared that with my city council. And that’s
cheering Spokane is another good one. Yeah. So were you you were working in Minneapolis at the time? I was working as the chief of bounds view, which is an inner inc suburb Minneapolis and Minneapolis was already down people. So every suburb had to help. There just wasn’t enough. But people think, what is Minneapolis two or 3000 officers? Full strength. That’s 800 guys. Minneapolis is just below 300 right now. Whoa. Yeah. And so they were only 500 or 600 at the time. So as far as state troopers, game warns, the poor fish cops had to come.
these guys look shell shocked. I’m a fish cop. And also, I’m right here. What’s going on here, man. But those guys were all shell shocked. And we got them out there. And we use a pretty loose model. So, you know, we have these five days retreats where we do a devotion to beginning and the ending of the day. And we’re not beating people over the head with the Bible. What we’re doing is we’re sharing our faith. We’re having different speakers. We’re just planting some stuff, you know, about trauma, about living their life, you know, about sharpening each other. And what we find is,
NATE HARDER (31:26.446)
Nobody says a word, you know, in police training, it’s no different because police are a bunch of control freaks. We sit in the back of the classroom not saying anything. We pick these guys up from the airport and they’re all so uncomfortable for the ride from Spokane down to the resort because they all want to be driving. They don’t want to surrender control. Right. But it’s a process. So they eventually surrender control that first devotion. Everybody just looks at you like you have a third eye, which of course, that’s the way it’s going to go. But then that first hike, we all go on. You have so many people come up to me. What did you mean?
And we just keep it pretty simple. We have a cross that’s about three miles up. And I’m not going to lie to anyone, it comes down, it sucks. But we just tell you, embrace the suck. And here’s an analogy of life. Keep your feet moving, encourage your brother, and focus on the cross. And you’re going to be there before you know it. That’s a good analogy. Yeah, and it’s because it does suck. I’m not going to lie to anyone. But it’s awesome to hear guys encouraging each other. And that’s how you live your life. And
You know, it’s we’ve had so many people just change their lives from this. It’s been awesome experience. It’s I know I’m exactly where God wants me at this point. And, you know, we’re seeing officers asking faith questions for the first time where, you know, 28 years ago or so when I started, if you said the word Jesus, people would make fun of you. Now, people, I think my favorite conversation I had with a guy, I just sat with him for about three hours. And he’s a blind officer.
he was blinded during the riots. And he finally looked went over and said, I am ready for this Jesus crap, man. And just difficult listening to such a cop thing. But it was it was a huge opening for me. It was awesome to be able to share my face this guy and this this guy was a stud who got hit in the face with a brick collapses eye socket, give him an infection, went from the left to the right eye. He lost his vision completely, just completely. And I finally got him out to one of our retreats. It was so cool because
It helps everybody out there because we took this guy kayaking like eight different times over rapids. We had a guy tied in front, tied in back, running slack, and a guy in left and right watching out for this guy like a little brother. And just seeing the smile on this dude’s face was just awesome. And then taking him up to the top of one of the peaks up there and just sitting for about an hour and just being with him. And he elbows me and looks over at me and he’s, dude, I can see everything.
NATE HARDER (33:47.662)
just in the smells and the sounds of nothing. It’s pretty cool. But I mean, that’s, you know, that’s, you know, God made North Idaho. And I firmly just, that’s where you dump your stress cup out. And I always tell people, I don’t really need this, dude, I don’t need, you need to dump your stress cup out, if not through us through something else, because you don’t want to wait for that stress cup to overflow. Because that’s when you have a ruined marriage. You know, you’re not the dad you wanted to be. You’ve got to dump this stress out before.
know you guys love to roll that that’s an outlet as well but dumping that stress cup out before it overflows in your life. Dang. You know, and we just started with cops. We’re doing retreats for corrections, firefighters, military. Our biggest thing is marriage retreats. I’m because it’s divorced cops and firefighters and military but we started off with with two they filled up in two weeks.
Then we went to three, filled up in a week. Now this this year we’re doing four and they’re all full again. And so many people is that can you take in one group? Yeah, so we take eight couples. And so you know, 16 people right there. But yeah, just last year, we had multiple we’ve all been around that marriage where, boy, right. Yeah, they show up and you’re like, I’m uncomfortable because of the tension there. We had several of those people. But both those couples that were you know, the uncomfortable couple to be around, renewed their vows on our porch.
And that was pretty cool. Yeah. And, you know, they’re both also in law enforcement still. Their marriage is still going strong. And, you know, why do you do this, Nate? Right there. You know, the officers that surrendered to Christ, you know, change their lives. That’s why I do this. And, yeah, I can’t tell you how much fun I have because I’m not passionate about law enforcement the way it is in some of these areas, but I’m passionate about my faith and I’m passionate about cops. And I feel like I’m right where God wants me right now. Man, this is so wild.
It’s so good. How does it work? Like, how do you pay for this stuff? Can you give us some of the nuts and bolts of it? Well, you know, it’s like you were talking about when you’re in 20s, you’re always working overtime. Life’s expensive, man. So we understand that. So we don’t charge anybody anything other than 50 bucks. And so these five day retreats, you know, this would be probably about a $1 ,200 package here. But their only expense is to get to us.
NATE HARDER (36:12.782)
And so you know, people that are flying in from all over the US, we pick them up in our shuttle bus at Spokane. Sometimes they have to sit there, you know, an hour or so, but we try to coordinate all the flights. We pick them up and we drop them off. And they pay 50 bucks online during the registration. The only reason we do that is so people don’t bail on us at the last second because you guys are valuable seats. That’s what cops do is just not show up. And so you know, we’ve been burned on that. But you know, I’m not angry about it. I just know that’s part hey, we have broken people coming to us.
we’re going to have some people that just can’t engage. So we just kind of try that so people have a little bit of skin in the game so they’re less likely to bail at the last second. And you know, everybody coming out looks different. There’s people that have pretty big faith background. There’s people that never been to church. It’s fine. We’re going to work with everybody. We had a gal who was, you know, obviously I’ll never mention who she was, where she is from, but she was terrible in a group and, you know, really struggled. But, you know, God’s wired us just to
every one of us differently. My daughter took her up by just those two together and went and picked huckleberries together and she came alive and was a different person. Just everyone’s happy place is a little bit different. Everyone can be reached just a little bit differently. And so yeah, it’s, you know, all these different retreats. It’s pretty neat because we started with just cops, that’s it. And then we’ve gone to all these different retreats, military, you know.
We still serve pastors and missionaries. And the biggest thing since I retired, I’ve lived here in the middle of nowhere since last April, is we also, you being Coeur d ‘Alene PD, we’re open to local agencies, peer support or somebody saying, hey dude, I have two or three people really hurting from this shift. They’ve really gone through the wringer. Can I bring them out? If we don’t have a retreat schedule, the answer is yes, bring them. And we’re gonna support that and they won’t pay anything. It’s just, we’re passionate about this. We wanna keep people in the game.
Cool thing man. Honestly thinking about just the way you described it go out and you find this place It’s a retreat. It’s already set up for that hasn’t been used in two or three years. It’s covered in flies Take this facility and you resurrect it and you bring it back along the way You’re resurrecting cops or people that have been in this and been through some really rough stuff and with what you described and what you went through before It did with you, too You know what I mean? Like you’re giving back and some of that’s got to be therapeutic therapeutic for you as well
NATE HARDER (38:35.758)
Everyone’s always telling me you got to write a book and I’m gonna write a book. You know, it’s I think one of the best stories we have of just redemption. I think I shared it with you guys before the guy that’s our facilitator for our military retreat. He’s a former Airborne Ranger first sergeant that isn’t you know, there’s a lot of guys that go to the Rangers for a couple years and this guy did his whole enlistment with the Rangers. Wow. And I think he said 18 combat deployments, you know, wow, Bronze Star Silver, you know, just a
you know, the guy’s been there done that amazing dude. And we do a faith conference every year in Minnesota. And you know, we bring like Adam Davis Grossman and you know, just relevant people just to talk. And he was a SWAT commander in the Twin Cities. He’s like, Hey, dude, I got a guy you have to have be a speaker next year. I almost killed him six years ago. I’m like, Okay, got my what? What an introduction? Okay, yeah, please. Can I have this guy? You know, is this guy some dirtbag or what?
Then he told me who he was. He’s like, this guy, you know, the VA loves to throw medicine at people instead of treating the actual state. They just treat symptoms with medicine, medicine, medicine, medicine. Not just the VA. That’s true. And it’s, you know, there is benefit in some of that. But I mean, some of these guys are, they’re zombies, you know, and he was one of them where he was on just every PTSD medicine, sleep, sleep medicine known to man. The guy had a psychotic episode, started running around with an M4, his underwear.
And officers get there, points the gun at them. They withdraw, they get swat out there, same thing. And they see this dude’s ranger tattoos. And some of these guys were rangers and they’re like, screw, I’m not shooting this dude. You know, and they did everything they could just to talk about eventually became loose. And he’s like, what am I doing? These are Americans because he thought he was fighting al Qaeda here. He surrenders his weapon and he’s he’s a broken man at this point. Well, that team leader is a man of faith. He shared his faith that this guy accepted Christ. He changed his life.
got off all that he went to detox to get off this crap. And he went back to school. This dude is the leading guy to go to for PTSD counseling in Twin Cities. And he’s a hostage negotiator on that SWAT team that almost killed him. Wow, all those officers had petitioned that don’t charge this dude get him help. And so this the story of redemption now he was almost smoked by the cops. Then he went back and now he’s helping cops and he’s helping first responders and he’s helping military and sharing his story and it
NATE HARDER (41:00.366)
I was like, heck yeah, we got to hear this dude. And he didn’t let down many of these the real deal. And it’s people can really relate to him. But that story of redemption, that’s, I hear stories like this all the time, where, you know, we try to maintain privacy. But every once in a while, you just got to share a story of you ask them, Can I share your story? And they say, Yeah, go ahead, man. There’s amazing stories going on. Does he still come out and speak? He’s going to be the military facilitator this year. Nice. I love to see that.
love to come here and speak. I run our hostage negotiation unit here. And a lot of times that’s what you’re doing. Everybody predicts that you’re dealing with a antisocial personality disorder or somebody like it’s a hardened criminal. Not always, man. Like there’s something else that’s a little bit different. I’d love to hear that guy speak. That’s pretty cool that he’s the negotiator for them now. Yeah, it’s amazing to see what God’s done with his life and how he’s impacting others right now. Pretty cool. Yeah, that’s really cool. That’s what I love about like the podcasting and having being able to share these
stories now with, you know, thousands of people out there to like listen to that. Cause I think the general public doesn’t understand they don’t get these stories usually cause you kind of got to be in the brotherhood or sisterhood to hear them. But I think they’re so powerful to share like, man, I got goosebumps the whole time you’ve been talking. So, and how that could have gone so completely different depending on who’s there and all that and what you’re offering for your retreat. And then we start talking about how Idaho has really started to break the stigma of mental health and law enforcement.
So much of our job is reactive. By the time we get there, the damage is done. We’re cleaning up the mess and we’re holding somebody accountable. How can we be more proactive? This time we’re not just talking about slaying drugs, right? We’re talking about how are we proactive in addressing issues that affect the human that’s behind the badge or behind the uniform or somebody else for that matter, right? Like how do we proactively intercept it and start recognizing signs and symptoms and indications? Get them in front of somebody like you where they can get around other like mine.
experience some suck on the mountain and then embrace, you know, embrace where they are in life. And that’s, that’s awesome. And I, I hate that this is the first I’ve heard about that program. And we literally work for Coeur d ‘Alene PD. You know, I think I told you off mic here is we got people from eight to just this last season alone, 18 different states. As far as way as Maine, we didn’t get one person local.
NATE HARDER (43:26.446)
Well, that’s a change I’m guessing. Yeah, that’s that’s that’s different. We’ve had Montana, but as far as that’s that’s pretty, you know, typical is hard to get people in your own back back to me. That’s kind of why I wanted to get you on here. And just because we’re, you know, such a local, we have such a local reach in the on this podcast is to connect you with him and connect you with some of the guys at the Patriot poor. Like Tim, I think you talked to him. He’s a chaplain over at Kootenai County, former former Seattle, Seattle. Yeah.
good dude and you know, he like people like that are those connections where you know, we can funnel the guys locally too that need help and show them where you’re at and get them down there. I think that’s huge. Well, and it’s cops man. So when, when you’re describing that say, okay, I can get on board with that. Right. You wake up, you have that little thing. And if that’s not your thing, that’s cool. You’ve got the rest of the day to yourself. You can be as involved in it as you want, but it’s not like you need to attend these six classes today or you need to go talk to this. Cop fight that. Yes, exactly.
because they want the control. But then as they buy off and they’re getting more out of it, you’re like, wait a minute. All right. Maybe I’ll go listen to a little more of this. The reason I we do that where it’s kind of loose is I’m not going to mention, you know, the retreat that it’s kind of a national one that’s out on East. Me and my wife went to that. It was so structured. And it was I mean, it was I liked the rich. I liked everything they did. But I saw everybody around there yearning to connect with each other. We couldn’t do it because there was no time. And I was like, you know, I like what we’re doing. But
it needs to be looser because I want these guys and gals to walk away with 16 friends for life where I can pick up the phone and say for somebody in Portland when I’m in Minneapolis and say, dude, I’m really struggling. I know you went through the riots. Would you pray for me? Or what got you through it, dude? Just giving you friends for life outside your chain of command, outside your peer support, right? And it’s huge. And there’s something about nature that does that. I know when my kids, more when they were being little a -holes and we take them on a walk in the woods, five minutes into it, they’re going to go.
They’re having a good time with each other playing. I’m still that way. Yeah. Yeah. I think everybody is right. There’s something to it. So, you know, yeah, you don’t you don’t necessarily need the structure. You just need to get them outside. Let them play around. We have like non scripted moments. You know, I can remember our firefighter retreat last year. We had a bull moose just walk right up. Nice. And all of us are drinking our coffee and just no words were said. But you know what a blessing that was? Yeah. It’s just, you know, how cool is that? It’s like almost like.
NATE HARDER (45:47.118)
God’s got cue the moose. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Totally. What? So how many retreats you do in a year? You know, you said you’ve got the ones for spouses. Like, what’s the total amount per year that you guys are doing 13 this, you know, besides the ones that we don’t advertise. And there are some of those. But as far as we’re doing 13 this season, you know, and anybody listening to this, that’s peer support, you know, Post Falls, Coeur d ‘Alene, State Police, Sandpoint. If you’re peer support,
Or just even if you’re not and you have a group of officers that’s hurting that wants to come to a place, just give me a call. As long as we’re not having a retreat, the answer is going to be yes. That’s awesome. What sort of feedback have you got from spouses that go with them or spouses from when they return? I told you as far as like after the very first retreat, I knew I’m doing exactly what God wants me to do. Do you guys remember when you were training?
when you were an instructor and you would look at the instructor comments, it’s usually like, what’s the best part of this training? When you stop talking? Classic. How can this? How can this training be improved? Completely eliminated? You know, that’s what cops do. And so that’s what I was expecting, because we do evals every time. How can I serve you better? You know, I was expecting, you know, smart ass answers that cops would do. And,
I had to try not to tear up, dude. I was going to kill myself, and I’m not going to. Another one was, I remember who God was. Another one, I’m going to be a better. Just the comments that we had, I wasn’t prepared for it. And it made me and my wife just choke up when we read these things. And we still stay in touch with absolutely everybody that’s been out here. We text all the time. I can remember after.
Floyd’s right, you know, riots another year and a half and then we had the Potter riots. What was kind of cool is when I had my guys down there helping just fist bumping guys that have been to Protectors Peak before and just you know praying with them, hey dude, stay strong man. God’s got this, you know, just encouraging guys who have been out there. It’s kind of neat to see. Yeah. And it didn’t take long to start running to guys that have been out there because like I said, we’re trying to pump through at least 130. And I don’t want to be bigger.
NATE HARDER (48:09.326)
people are always is that all you impact is 130 we have kind of a call to the small and you know just just think about in your careers would you rather go to battle with three studs or 20 dorks I’ll take the three studs we want to we want to have the you know the quality over quantity we want people to have life changing experiences and you can’t do that with a gigantic group we want lifelong friends yeah and so we want I like the small model I really do.
I think yeah, because you’ll create a bigger impact with a smaller group. Now that spreads, they go back to their department and now they’re the positive light in sometimes a room full of darkness, right in most briefing rooms. Yeah, and it’s not a resort. And that’s contagious to Yeah, what’s your model is is not a resort. This is a retreat where you can go and heal and learn something about yourself and try to get
something. It’s not supposed to be a vacation. Right. You’re not sitting there drinking beers, right? There’s no alcohol. No, we’re dry. And it’s not because of, you know, you’re going to hell if you have beer. That’s not what it is. Just we recognize we want to sharpen people and never be a stumbling block. And we realize, hey, a lot of us have problems in law enforcement, firefighting in the military, you know, with alcohol. So we just don’t want that to ever, we never want to be a stumbling block to someone. So we are a dry facility. As long as you have coffee, it’s fine. You know, I…
I think our record was 30 pots. There was a Minnesota homicide sergeant, I swear the dude drank 10. No water. Classic. So how is this funded? That’s another question. Well, you know, the one thing that we are not funded is government. I refused to do that. Nice. When I was still in Minnesota, there was the three big
nonprofits that serve first responders, we had a chance to testify in front of the Minnesota legislator. And they were prepared to give each one like a million dollars. And this I recognize it for what it was. It’s, it’s money to get us to shut up and go away. And all we’re so supportive of you when they’re turning around making legislation that sends good officers to jail for no reason. And I’m going to be vocal my faith, I said, I’m not going to beat it or shove it down people’s throats. But I’m not having the government tell me what to do with my money. And so we won’t take government money.
NATE HARDER (50:23.982)
So we have private grants, we have private funding, we have online donations. We’re a 501c3, so we just generate, we have a golf tournament coming up in May, which I’ve never done, so if you guys are – Where is it? Where’s it gonna be? It’s gonna be in Post Falls, I forgot which one it was. Okay. I bet it’s at the Lynx. Yeah, I think that’s exactly where. Yeah, the Lynx. Was it put on by you guys or someone else that you’re tying in with? Yeah, we might have a partner here, maybe inland.
Well, it’s not maybe we are definitely doing it with inland Northwest heroes foundation. They’ve done one before. I haven’t. And I don’t golf either. So I need to. But yeah, we also want to do it where we can have fun. And it’s not so under the public microscope there because I like the idea of those AR 15 golf ball guns. I ran one last year. It was my actually pistol. But I had a millimeter one. I heard that I was instantly sold on that. OK, we have to have it’s pretty fun. Stay in touch, man. We’ll get you.
in with Cassie Allen runs Anchored Coffee, which is awesome, but she is also one of the best. My daughter’s talked to her before. She’s awesome. So if you’re going to run that, I promise you she will be behind this. Did you ever connected with Teresa Hart at New Beginnings? I have not. I’m still kind of a rookie here. So I really appreciate you have me on here because I’m still meeting people in this area. Well, you’ve tied in with the right connection. So you need to connect with her. I’ll get your info after.
New beginnings is her son was killed in Iraq, I believe and she started a veteran organization. So she has a storefront that if you can prove that you’re a veteran, you do not pay for anything. They have home goods, food, everything, furnishing, all donation based. Yes. It’s right here in post falls or Coeur d ‘Alene. So we’re here post falls. It’s over by the Academy. It is super cool. We’ve, you know, we’re still going, you know, recently we added Pat Knight, former police chief of post falls to our board.
Richard Abbey is in Post Falls as part of that as well. And he’s on our board. So we you know, we have two people that are on our board from Idaho. Yeah. And we’re always looking, you know, to make partnerships. We love it just patriots were kind of the exception in Minnesota. And you know, patriots are norms and here in Idaho. So it’s a lot of neat people. You just opened up a can of worms. All right, you’re gonna get a lot more solicitations for partnerships. That’s for sure solicitations. Well, we you know, it’s
NATE HARDER (52:45.614)
Hey, once again, as iron sharpens, we want to sharpen other agencies, we want to sharpen you guys love seeing success stories, former police officers making a good doing a realtor. Yeah. You know, I had lunch with Kyle, you know, from Northwest heroes foundation yesterday. He’s doing great work, too. We love these organizations that are coming into contact with us. And we just you know, we want to add more and more kind of to our friends list. And you know, anyone that wants to donate, we always take donations because we want people to you know, that
to not have to think about finances to get out here. Yep. Yep. That’s the funny thing about real estate and officers in real estate. I swear I feel the same way about this profession as I do being a cop. And I know I’m blessed. And man, I never had to work where you guys did before. I wasn’t a blue blood. My mom was a police officer growing up. But I wasn’t a blue blood. I was not. Anybody that knows me when I was a kid, they still laugh at the thought of me being a cop. That’s always the best ones right there. My buddy’s on subs.
Any of them are listening to this, they will attest that they can, number one, they can’t believe I got through the background. Number two, they can’t believe I chose this line of work. But man, when you get out there and you’re getting those folks in communities like that, I cannot imagine being a cop anywhere else in Idaho just because we have that backing. And it’d be so hard to read about what’s going on online and then inevitable bashing that comes down on the individuals. Good on them, truly.
And those ones inspire me, but being a real estate agent, I don’t think I’d do it anywhere other than Idaho either. Because you truly believe in what you’re selling. Like where we live is awesome. And a big part of it’s because what I see on the other side for that profession, it’s pretty bad ass. I wouldn’t do it somewhere else. No, and we’re pretty fortunate because most of our clients are from the same backgrounds and it’s like, it’s just like they become instant friends. And you click up, you’re like, bro, come out here. Yeah, so much in common. We need to hang out right there. Yeah. Come out here and check it out. Yeah, it is. You’re going to like it.
It is fun to see those connections where they’ve known each other 10 minutes and like, how long have you guys known each other? We just met. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So much in common. Yeah. Well, it’s because you’re already making fun of each other or talking trash. Yeah. And that’s how I say I love you and police work. Right. Yeah. Exactly. I’m either getting made fun of for being a submariner or I’m making fun of a motor cop or whatever it is. There’s a lot to do. There’s nothing wrong with motor cops. I mean, whatever. We had our firefighter retreat last year. I cooked for it and I got
NATE HARDER (55:03.278)
about five minutes into my jokes and I’m like, Hey, I’m done. Now I wait one more. One more. Yeah. There’s gotta be a little mugs thing. Y ‘all are stuck here. You gotta listen to it. First responders like the military, man. Navy can make fun of Marines. Marines can make fun of army. Marines can make fun of Navy. But if somebody comes in and trash talks, anyone outside of that group, it’s on. Absolutely. That’s the beauty of it. Same with cops and fire. You know, it’s so many people like this, since there’s so many Patriots here, people are like, gosh, I can’t do anything about what’s going on in Minnesota.
California or some of these other places and that’s not true. You can support them and you know, support an organization like ours. You’re supporting cops from and you know, first responders from all over the United States. And it’s such a great way to say, hey, thanks for what you’re doing. We want you to stay where you are. So this country doesn’t fold. Yeah, and we want to encourage you and that that’s a huge, huge deal. We talked about partnerships, you know, one of the guys become my good friend, Jake Skiffstad with Shield 616 provides through churches.
rifle plate armor for officers. So some some of these and you know, he was Colorado Springs SWAT and he was the first planned parenthood shooting lost two guys that irked at him it ate at him to the point where we talked about earlier you can gripe about it or your am lords send me and he did something about he started a nonprofit and he goes throughout the United States effect every one of my officers at armor for shield 616 that we wore during the riot. That’s wild. So I love these partnerships and you know, Jake is
in Minnesota right now, presenting. And I said, just the partnerships that you see, you know, through podcasts like this are pretty amazing, and open up some pretty cool things. Yeah, similar, similar, but different. Like yours is kind of an indirect route to saving lives. But you’ve already got it on paper, you save that dude’s life. He said he was thinking about it before. He’s not anymore. When you think about him, you imagine getting a letter saying, what you did legitimately saved my wife, I took one hit me right in the chest plate, like,
that’s how you that’s how you really make a difference. And it’s not just that plate for that individual that stops a bullet. Tell them you give a shit. Yeah, absolutely. You care about like, hey, your life means a lot more to you may not see it or read it as much as you should. There are people out there that care about you. And I love giving him a plug, you know, last October, and we’re gonna do it again this year. Mission First Alliance is another other faith based group, but their whole mission is to bring
NATE HARDER (57:27.63)
nonprofits that serve first responders together. And so we had a summit last year, it was like 12 different nonprofits. And it is so cool to see what some of the people are doing for first responders and, you know, and Jake was there. But we’re also hosting that again, that’s that’s not on our retreat list. But it’s just one of those other things that we host at Protector’s Peak. That’s cool. Pretty cool to see what people are doing out there.
My brain is just spinning with people that connect you with that I think can provide resources and like, you know, like we want you to have all of the resources that you need to do the job that you’re doing because it’s super important. It’s like, man, and they’re out there and they’re here in town, I think. And I think that connect those connections would be freaking awesome. And not only that, but combine your network with theirs so that they can reach a wider group because they’re providing similar benefit to what that is. It’s just, it’s awesome.
Huge. Well, that’s an hour, fellas. Goes by so fast. Wouldn’t like that. We’ve just been drinking coffee on the back porch right here. If that was filled with whiskey, we’d be here for two more hours. I love these conversations. Nate, thank you for coming out again. And always a pleasure. Looking forward to keeping the connection going. And we will put your contact info in the description so people can find out.
find you. We have listeners all over the country. So if you know they may want to give a donation, can they do that right on the website? Yep. It’s just under donate, the protector’s peak and yeah. Perfect. Yeah. So if you’re out there and you’re looking to help out and you want to jump in on an amazing program here locally in Idaho, I encourage you to reach out there and make a donation or you know if you have some skill set or hey maybe you need that help, you know, hit them up. Here’s a great place to do it. Yeah. Appreciate it. And those laterals out there. Yeah. Alright. Reach out. We need good cops. We need good people.
Yeah. Let’s go. All right. Well, thank you, Nate. Thanks for having me on guys. I appreciate it. Yeah. You’re welcome.
NATE HARDER (59:26.158)
That was quick, man.
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