ever forget and it's a day we wish that we could forget for one major reason and today we're going to be talking about positive things that can actually come out of and he's the founder and president of current nine eleven and you'll be hearing so much more about heart nine eleven and the wonderful work that they're doing so bill before we actually even get into all of this i'm just curious what were you doing on september eleventh two thousand i want to remember oh yeah i think like most people you know you can't forget where you were when you first heard the news but you were joined on the t v you saw those horrific images i was with my middle daughter and we were attacked a mountainside hospital for specialized treatment and there we were going in for communications evaluation pulled into the parking lot before nine o'clock appointment and received a phone call saying you met a small plane that crashed into the one tower of the world trade center and shortly thereafter when we were inside we heard screams from people as they were watching their t v s and saw the second plane come into the buildings and i knew right away that this was a terrorist attack and that dog country was under attack became a new normal for us moving forward i left the hospital around ten o'clock made my way into new york city and was debriefed as to what was happening down at the trade and the next day i came back to the trade center and i was named the operations commander for the port authority police department for the night two or so which split the response in to two tours a day tour for twelve hours and a night or so from six p m to six am every night for the next nine months i came to the world trade center and it was over sort of the your rescue recovery operation it was it was an incredible responsibility especially how dangerous it was and i felt their very heavily as all the supervisors from the f t n y the n y p d and port authority police department to make sure that we were safe and and one of our mantras there was is not to lose one more person to those nineteen cowards that took down the individual and i think it triggered that in so many people with they found it in themselves this overwhelming desire to come to the world trade center either through letters or prayers or physically been there  and we felt that certainly we felt this country come together could you know in a way that it had been in such a long time and that gave us our strength to live to look inside ourselves and realize that we could get up off our  knees and do this job for the people that were waiting at home for answers about their loved ones while it and i says what i'm hearing you say is that it helps you to realize that this is bigger than than us it's not me it's bigger you know and i think that's really what i admire about what you're actually doing because you took this strategy strach what i can speak today tragedy sorry and actually  turned it around to change pack so many people's lives and that brings me to my next question how did you do that i think seeing that feeling that in a real way  the love that was showered upon us and it was transactional because i think a lot of people saw us you know digging with our hands in the beginning just trying to remove debris as sort of a passionate  work that everybody recognized wow there's they're still working there they're in there working so what oh so they were sending us love and we were representing to them the courage and bravery that they had hoped americans would have and it kind of became a quid quo pro moving forward so we fed off of each other the country fed off of us we fed off of the country and that's what made it so perfect and we realized that our expertise no matter how challenged it was at that time because who could have ever imagined this level of destruction and having to do with this building collapse would challenge us in such a way that we knew that we needed to bring all full expertise and experience to the to the job and and that when i recognized that we even in the face of that could overcome and i realize that we did it with the people that i was working with the camaraderie many military people talk about you know that in the face of the horror and danger they looked to each other and we started to have that bond and in that carried us through so when it came time to retire which was a few years after the nine eleven rescue recovery mission i had noticed that so many of the people who had retired also were kind of floundering and they didn't have a purpose anymore they realized that the job they had done is cop so far and was not only for money but it was because they liked helping people and had become who they were and because they were no longer doing it they didn't know who they w used to do for a living how that we were trained at a huge cost over twenty twenty five thirty years of working in a metropolis of new york city where every death was a challenge in one way or another whether it's something small the something big like you know airplanes landing in the hudson river with us so what i mean you know who would have thought that that type of rescue would happen so quickly and so thoroughly and so safely so the to dissipate let's let's engage it which in gauge each other plus it gives us back their camaraderie give us a spec hanging out with people who had done something together that was so meaningful in their lives and allows us to talk to each  other and it just really took off so we have people that would say it was we were down right of the katrina and we would go down and people would say i can't believe you people are here to help partially we should be helping new you went through that origen i know you helped us and now we're here to help you right and that's what so when gauging about the heart and live and work that's so powerful and they continue to help you because as you just said so eloquently earlier when you would help someone you get back so much more correct from that why of the things we do obviously where we're first responders and many of us will femur trained responders and we'll go down to the train or aftermath we've been to nashville tennessee with the flooding we've been back to new orleans on two different occasions with flooding we were moore oklahoma with the tornadoes we were to haiti after the two thousand and ten earthquake i vent eighty at least fifteen times what hard nine eleven has been there over twenty times we've built pharmacies clinics over  whose lives have been destroyed and the really cool thing about doing that i think to a person would tell you is that the people we're building the homes for were living in small little tents just outside of the every wood building so they as a family were coming in and helping build their own homes and watching us give them the expertise in how to do this and our hope is which is what we did in haiti with the watch was school system we taught them how to use tools how to build and the old saying you know new teacher cannot teach a man how to fish and we taught both men and women in haiti how to do that and we're doing the same thing in ecuador what we're going to do in follow up in ecuador also is just that it is a really a country that made credible progress but they're building codes they're there of emergency room evacuations are very lacking so they get these big beautiful i think that because i think that's one of the key things i'm as i say it's not that i'm from jamaica and i think a lot of times sometimes we feel that the best way to help someone is to just to give to them but i think the way that we sustain and help someone to grow when we are not there is to by teaching them as you just said earlier so i see what you're doing is not only helping individuals back building but also help me that to sustain themselves in the future of themselves and their it with the haitian people especially because we still spend a lot of time over the years there they want to learn they like sponge and they want to impact positively their community and the community looks to them and it and it goes back and forth where they feel good about themselves because they can help their neighbors and it gave them a reason to move forward in would be interesting if the earthquake with really horrible devastation but it did become know when we go through the nine eleven is that earthquakes etc it's so devastating but it really shows that they are human and we salience you know our power to actually overcome by move forward you know exactly when we  responding to sandy the next day we wound up in queens and brooklyn in new york city and what we did is that we started moving right away to got people's homes and what you do is you meet people whose lives have just been dead as stated and now you are taking out their couches you taking out the kitchen you know and so many of the wives that stay kitchen it's where their family home it's where they they had their family dinners and and he it's all being thrown out on the curb everything that they have our experiences as first responders our experiences has been victims also during nine eleven allowed us to have a more and pathetic compassionate view towards those people so not only did we got their homes but we started building them up and telling them about hope and it can take it's a unique message coming from somebody that they watched during nine eleven  crying and trying to overcome our own and now we're here so that we have a real validation of what they're going through and that they can get better and that was the beginning of we realized that that bond when we gave the mantras about their house and we're going to rebuild itself we rebuilt over two hundred forty homes in gerritsen beach brooklyn wow and that area in just fifty five weeks and  the way we did that is by completely gutting the house putting in all new flooring putting in insulation and sheet rock so that they could begin their lives ahead of time but why put a family into a new home when the family is  they're all fractured thing they have to put sos together and we realized how important our message can be to those people which led us then to newtown connecticut ok there probably is no more horrific image than those poor children and the teachers that were killed on that day while and what happened was is that the first responders in newtown was so conscious of what they needed to do in their duty they had taken care of themselves and it was starting to manifest itself some time later and we were asked this hard and eleven come up and work with those first responders we spent fifteen months with them hanging out with them listening to them seen what their needs were breaking down the concrete that they had to build around themselves to be able to deal with what they were dealing with take that concrete away and then sort of building the back up and it was  so warding to us and it was such a good program that we're trying to expand this program with the harvard school of medicine and the benson henry institute which is about a mindfulness and wellness and we're trying to with that stress that doesn't happen with self medication or being angry right and dealing with the community in a more effective way because they are calm and still do pension henry institute is already working with the military here in some of these ways we're going to take that program to first responders throughout this country hossam and that's how we feel ourselves affected so we can go into the time of a disaster and help out came to me and said you know we really feel as if mall injury brings a lot more to the table when you're trying to recover than maybe were given credit for it's where your comp been thrown off everything that you believe is right like children in this classroom teaching with teachers and all the sudden the horrible thinking there that you know it even if you're not there even if you didn't see it of that core exactly so we're in a unique position because we're with people at that time of disaster and mass casualty type things so now we can bring that next piece to them and we feel as if then you know people don't realize this is no longer just come by our i mean think it works i did this is now been proven scientifically that it works that your body can we act in a different way to these really horrible messages that are being sent that you on an ongoing basis whether it's one internet or whether it's a multitude over years of things and so that's our next level of response and so we were really good to you know glad to be able to help people we're working with the veterans we've built so many veteran homes now because there's not always a disaster that we need to respond to so how do we keep our people together when we keep our people together by given them training opportunities which means building homes for veterans or modifying their homes while they were sent as a obvious where they've lost limbs we try to help put them back together again but we want to bring veterans into our building groups which of that they feel empowered and they're helping a brother or sister and they start to fuel really good about themselves second pitch sometimes they don't really understand why they went overseas so i think we're all conflicted about right now when they work with the nine eleven responders they've given that region right i'm cautious my brother and i lost my sister i lost my family i did this and this and they feel that automatically that the real camaraderie with this group of people and they start to feel ok it was worthwhile i didn't do it for beach people and i and now look to these people wow look where they are now today i can get there to wow what healing i mean you know you started only with initially this initiative the heart nine eleven to help yourselves and your colleagues to heal but it has it's like rippling effect that you have no vision that white what where you started out is where where you are today is where you're going to start that's physical doesn't necessarily feel the emotion of pain that so many people call through and the p t s d as they used so eloquently spoke about is something that so many individuals especially individuals who are veterans go through and am so intrigued to hear that you're doing the work that you're doing to help people to heal emotionally because one of the key things you know this macho kind of image i know you'll get as i said yo you mean just talking to that person because you can relate to what that person had is going through exactly you see there is the message and there's the messenger and if they're both not in sync they don't work so you could have a harvard professor brilliant person command and speak to first responders it's not going to hit the target exactly in the message is great exactly it's scientifically proven they can dispute the messengers wrong for that population we though going through these courses in harvard will learn a new neural biology was speaking the language that allows even a police officer  logical progression of what happens tonight take it from us it happened to me it happened to my friends and we were able to tell personal stories which opens them up on blocks that i'm clean for the message of here's a way that you can help yourself just try to meditate on this mountain you didn't feel different right and the more you do this the better you will feel and this is something you can do before you go into you for help and when you need just a few minutes alone to lower the temperature of when you when you go home you open to enjoy your family right rather than bring in the home so many times we think we're insulating our family by not talking about we never bring to a job a home and i think so many people i'm not going to let it contaminate my family or you're really doing worse because they feel it right if you could go home and have a seven and what we are mostly police firemen and the new york city building trades the unions they came to help us to lead the post nine eleven attacks and so we have a level of expertise and experience that's a little bit further along than a lot of other groups that do similar work and what we like to do which is you know obviously we need dollars to engineer work but we also take on people  may find that working with this specific group and all that went through what we've gone through would be good for their company so we look for corporate sponsorships and we will take your employees with us and we'll help them learn how to help other people we also then a very open about what we've been through and i think that a lot of companies and corporations that would be very good to see the team work i mean that's in corporate communications in timor right and they can learn from us how we did it down at the trade center and how we continue to do it moving forward though those are two of the opportunities that i offer to people that would like to help  wow wow and i we know how you can actually eat what you have been doing to help others i'm going to kind of to give you on what but for and when it can i give you a question that initially i discussed on and off color my head what we go to all of the funerals as many as we could make and the eulogies you know they weren't just cops and firemen they were they were the religious teacher in the parish and they were the coach of the girls basketball team they were the cub scout leader they need to win so much in their community also and that would come through in some ways that i didn't even know because it was when they went home and you were how they they kept you in it so that legacy of selflessness to run into a building that's on fire there's a mess to be able to do that for others was why hard on all of them which dorothy we thought that was the best memorial not something made of concrete and some of them are very beautiful don't get me wrong but to really build something that takes that and moves it forward so that the legacy of heartland eleven i hope is that you can have an impact on people that that helping or heal yourself wow and that's what i'm trying to tell people is that when you have the experience and the expertise that we have we need to just so remarkable and i wish you all the best thing for word and that you have our support in whatever way that we can actually be a sport to you moving forward also and to my guests i really hope that you whatever ways that you can actually support this organization because they are doing wonderful work well until next time thin