Zach reconnects with Logan Price, an old friend from their Colorado small-group days — the "MacGyver" of the group — who has spent the four years since they last talked rebuilding his working life around his family. Logan walked away from a dealership mechanic job he hated, took roughly a 60% pay cut to become an EMT and then a paramedic (finishing school right as COVID hit), and backfilled the income gap with a car shop he runs out of his own garage — a 1968 Land Cruiser hanging over his shoulder on the Zoom call to prove it. His 48-hours-on, 96-hours-off EMS schedule was chosen on purpose: he misses some things being gone two days, but he's home for far more than most dads ever get. The conversation digs into what the job taught him about himself — that he's an "introverted extrovert" who spent years thinking he hated people when he was really just shy — and how that self-knowledge shaped the way he's raising his almost-four-year-old son Brantley, a kid who orders his own food at restaurants and walks up to old-timers at the Napa counter to ask, "What are you working on today?" The episode lands hard on presence: Logan, echoing a line from a previous guest that nearly brought him to tears on his commute, commits to not just being in the room but being in the room — phone in another location, notifications off, a watch to filter the truly urgent.
Logan chose EMS partly for the 48-on/96-off rhythm — four straight days home with his son. He went in knowing he'd miss some things, but he'd be home for more than he'd miss. Most dads inherit a schedule; Logan engineered one.
Logan's bluntest admission: leaving the dealership made him a better dad "because I'm not so angry." If work is grinding you down, your kids are absorbing the residue whether you see it or not.
The leap from mechanic to EMS meant a ~60% pay cut, a side business to pay the bills, and plenty of fear. He and his wife decided together, then jumped. Courage isn't the absence of fear; it's acting with it.
A mechanic's frame for risk: he's tried plenty of fixes on cars that didn't work. You step back, take another look, and dive back in. A career move that doesn't pan out works the same way.
Brantley orders his own food at restaurants — imperfectly, sometimes needing interpretation — because Logan never wanted him to be afraid to talk to people the way he was. Independence is built in small, unglamorous reps. (And as the conversation surfaces: friendliness still needs a discernment lesson bolted on.)
Phone in a different room on "daddy days," notifications off, a Garmin watch as the only filter for genuine emergencies. Logan's fear isn't absence — he'll be there — it's his son remembering him as present in body and gone in attention.
I took a huge leap of faith to pursue EMS where I took like a 60% pay cut just to go do something that I felt led to.
Tonight, leave your phone in a different room during kid time and kill the notifications. If you need a filter for real emergencies, let a watch do that job.
Pick one thing your kid can do himself that you've been doing for him — ordering his own food, speaking to an adult — and hand it over this week.
Gut-check the anger test: if you come home from work short-fused most days, sit down with your wife and honestly price out what a change would cost — and what staying is costing.
Text one friend you haven't talked to in years. Logan and Zach's four-year gap closed with a single check-in message.
If your kid is a social butterfly, pair the "don't be shy" coaching with one concrete discernment rule (what to do if a stranger asks them to go somewhere).
Practical skills, real stories, and one thing to actually do this week with your family. Written by a dad in the trenches, not a marketing department.
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