Morgan Englund (Hollywood, Fire Service Purpose and Catharsis Through Music) - Episode 1215

Behind The Shield

James Geering

Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Fitness

4.9 • 695 Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2026

⏱️ 132 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Morgan Englund's life has been nothing short of a wild ride. He first gained widespread recognition as an actor for his portrayal of Dylan Lewis on CBS's Guiding Light. But, his passion for serving others led him to become a firefighter/paramedic for the city of Los Angeles, a role in which he served with distinction.

Since leaving the fire department, Morgan has embarked on a new journey, choosing to focus his attention on healing through music, public speaking and sound meditation. Through this work, he hopes to heal himself and others overcome past trauma and the debilitating effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. Morgan's willingness to explore unconventional paths to healing is a testament to his ongoing commitment to lifting others and making a positive impact on the world.

Morgan Englund is a 2× TEDx speaker, former firefighter/paramedic, and cultural change leader committed to reducing firefighter suicide and mental health injuries through meaningful cultural reform. His work is grounded in a sobering reality: firefighters are three times more likely to die by suicide than to be killed in the line of duty. After more than two decades in the fire service, Morgan understands the toughness, compartmentalization, and endurance the job demands. He also witnessed the cost of a culture that never teaches how to stand down—losing friends and colleagues to suicide, burnout, and despair.

Morgan didn’t just survive that environment; he did the work to heal from it without losing his edge. Today, Morgan speaks to firefighters, leaders, and organizations about completing the culture they already value—honoring toughness while adding the missing skills of recovery, integrity, and connection. His talks are practical, grounded, and firefighter-credible, focused on outcomes that matter: fewer mental health injuries, reduced sick time, improved quality of life, and lives saved. This work exists for one reason: to protect the people who protect everyone else—by changing the culture that’s quietly costing them their lives.

https://morganenglund.com/about

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Behind a Shield podcast. As always my name's James Gearing and this week it is
0:03.9	an absolute honor to welcome on the show, actor, former LAFD firefighter and musician Morgan, England.
0:13.9	Now in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from growing up in a Hollywood family,
0:20.6	his initial rejection of the acting world,
0:24.0	finding himself in a soap opera, seeking purpose in the fire service, how toxic environments
0:30.7	affected his mental health, refinding joy in performance, and so much more. Now before we get to this incredible conversation,
0:39.4	as I say every week, please just take a moment. Go to whichever app you listen to this on,
0:45.2	subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating. Every single five-star rating truly does
0:52.9	elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for
0:56.1	others to find. And this is a free library of over 1,200 episodes now. So all I ask in return
1:04.1	is that you help share these incredible men and women's stories so I can get them to every
1:10.2	single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.
1:14.2	So with that being said, I introduced to you Morgan, I want to start by saying thank you so much for taking the time and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today. Yeah, I'm really glad to be here. I've been waiting for a couple months since we spoke. Yeah, absolutely. It's a good thing. I'm so jammed up on interviews at the moment. And a long, long time ago, someone said to me, aren't you afraid you're going to run out of people to interview? And I said, it's the opposite. There aren't enough days in the week to get all these
2:04.5	people on the show. So I appreciate your patience. So very first question, where on planet Earth
2:10.1	are we finding you this morning? I am outside of Los Angeles, just north and Thousand Oaks.
2:16.5	It's another beautiful day here in Southern California. Beautiful. I worked for Anaheim Fire for a few years, so I lived Huntington Beach and Burbank. And, yeah, I mean, any time it wasn't a beautiful day in California, it was a strange day. Yeah, it's true. We've had a little rain recently, which has just been amazing. The hills are green.
2:34.9	It's just beautiful right now.
2:37.0	Flowers are budding, just starting to bud.
2:39.5	It's really nice.
2:40.7	Good news for the fire service.
2:42.4	Yeah.
2:43.6	For next season, for sure.
	...

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