58. Firefighters

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: The Economics of Everyday Things
Host: Zachary Crockett (Freakonomics Network)
Episode: 58 - Firefighters
Date: July 20, 2026

This episode delves into the surprising economics, history, and daily realities of firefighting in America. Host Zachary Crockett investigates how the job has evolved from dramatic, fire-battling heroics to a complex blend of EMS service, public safety, and very expensive community insurance—deeply shaped by technology, economics, and changing public expectations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Heroic Image vs. Modern Reality

• Anecdote Opens the Show: Eric Macintosh recalls a ferocious fire in Half Moon Bay, CA, 20 years ago, which took nearly 100 firefighters and 25 trucks to combat ([00:49-02:01]). Despite the harrowing danger, Macintosh reflects on the adrenaline and satisfaction of flawlessly executing his training.
  • Quote: "The adrenaline's rolling. Your training that you've worked so hard for, you were able to put into play. You know, you hate to say it, but you feel great. But then, of course, the adrenaline fades and just exhaustion." — Eric Macintosh ([02:01])
• Context: While such heroic firefighting moments are celebrated, Crockett notes they are increasingly rare, prompting a look at how and why the job is changing ([02:16]).

2. The History of American Firefighting

• Colonial and 1800s Era: Firefighting began as a community and subscription-based service—if you weren’t a paying customer, your fire might not be put out ([03:00-03:49]).
  • “You subscribed or paid them an annual fee and then they would come put your fire out.” — Steve Peagram ([03:35])
• From Profit to Public Service: Modern departments are largely municipal, publicly funded, and staffed roughly 65% by volunteers ([04:17]). The ethos has shifted: firefighters don’t deny service for non-payment.
  • “The fire department is insurance for the community. I don't think the fire service ever looks at it from an economic standpoint. I mean, it's about saving lives first, saving property second.” — Steve Peagram ([04:44])

3. What It Costs to Run a Fire Department

• Astronomical Expenses: Fire engines can cost nearly $1 million, ladder trucks $2 million, and equipping a single firefighter can total $20,000 ([05:53-07:11]).
  • Notable Detail: Radios needed for compliance and safety run $7,500 each—off-the-shelf walkie-talkies won’t do.
  • “Maybe we saved a couple thousand dollars on gear, but now we have a million dollar workers comp claim.” — Steve Peagram ([07:34])
• Budget Math: In small towns, low labor costs prevail due to volunteers. In urban, salaried departments, 75–90% goes to salaries/benefits, leaving about $200,000 of a $3.5 million budget for operations ([08:00]).

4. A Day in the Life: Firefighters at Station 28

• Routine and Readiness: The crew lives at the station in extended shifts (e.g., 2 days on, 4 days off), doing maintenance, cleaning, prepping equipment, and always ready to drop everything for a call ([08:55-10:19]).
  • Quote: “If a call comes in...we drop what we’re doing and respond.” — Eric Macintosh ([10:19])
• Speed Matters: Average response is under 5.5 minutes; fire poles are still used for quick deployment ([10:33-11:04]).
  • “Our expectation is our crews are on the engine and out the door within one minute at night... two minutes because, you know, you have to wake up...” — Eric Macintosh ([10:46])
• Types of Fires: Most are kitchen/cooking fires or, increasingly, battery fires linked to lithium-ion batteries in modern devices ([11:51-12:07]).
  • “We are seeing a big increase in lithium ion battery fires. That is kind of a new phenomenon for us... Even when we put them out, they can reignite.” — Eric Macintosh ([12:07])

5. The Rise of EMS: Firefighters as First Responders

• Decline in Fires, Explosion in EMS Calls: Structure fires fell 34% and vehicle fires 60% between 1987–2017, while EMS calls grew by 250% ([14:44-16:07]).
  • Quote: “On a population-weighted basis, total fire incidents fell by nearly 60% over three decades... Both the number of firefighter and civilian deaths and injuries from fire decline proportionally…” — Joshua Hurwitz ([16:07])
• So, Where Do All the Firefighters Go?: Salaried firefighter ranks increased by 54% over the same period ([17:04]).
• Modern Firefighters’ Workload: In San Mateo Consolidated, only 3% of 19,719 annual calls are fires; most are medical ([14:44-15:14]).
  • “This year alone, we have averaged around four structure fires per month. So that's not a lot, you know…” — Eric Macintosh ([14:57])
  • 3 of 4 are extinguished by sprinklers or residents before crews arrive ([15:14]).
• Unusual Calls: Beyond fires and medical emergencies, departments handle everything from animal rescues to basement floods ([17:49-18:01]).
  • “I've spent four hours on a pig rescue... been on horse rescues. I've been on cow rescues, I've been on flooded basements...” — Steve Peagram ([17:49])

6. Firefighters & Ambulance Gaps

• Ambulance Shortfall: Many communities have few ambulances for their population, making fire crews critical first responders ([18:56-19:34]).
  • “The response time is often 10, 15 minutes. For somebody who is choking or having a heart attack, that is obviously way too long.” — Eric Macintosh ([19:34])
• Why Send the Fire Truck?: Fire engines are strategically located; deploying them quickly to provide EMS care is low marginal cost, even if they're expensive to own ([20:26-21:13]).
  • Cost Breakdown: Average minimum cost calculation is just over $400 per response, whether for fire, EMS, or false alarms ([21:57]).

7. Is It "Worth It"?

• Cost vs. Value: Even though it seems expensive to send a $2 million truck for a minor call, the value of lives saved over careers dramatically outweighs costs ([22:26]).
  • “Given the economic value we place on life, a single save by a firefighter over a career can more than outweigh total employment costs.” — Joshua Hurwitz ([22:26])
• Philosophy of Service:
  • “They will help you change a tire. They'll give grandma CPR. They'll dive into a pond to rescue a drowning child. Maybe it's not a fire, but they have a great big toolbox and a whole bunch of really smart men and women that can fix problems.” — Steve Peagram ([22:44])

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Memorable Quotes and Moments

• On the adrenaline of fighting fire:
  “You know, you hate to say it, but you feel great. But then, of course, the adrenaline fades and just exhaustion.” — Eric Macintosh ([02:01])
• On equipment costs:
  “You can't just go to Radio Shack and buy a walkie talkie for $250... We have to buy an intrinsically safe, NIMS compliant...radio that costs $7,500.” — Steve Peagram ([06:45])
• On the rare frequency of fires:
  “This year alone, we have averaged around four structure fires per month. So that's not a lot, you know…” — Eric Macintosh ([14:57])
• On the firefighter’s broad mandate:
  “They will help you change a tire. They'll give grandma CPR. They'll dive into a pond to rescue a drowning child...a whole bunch of really smart men and women that can fix problems.” — Steve Peagram ([22:44])
• On cost-effectiveness and value:
  “Given the economic value that we place on life, a single save by a firefighter over a career can more than outweigh total employment costs.” — Joshua Hurwitz ([22:26])
• On the quirks of station life:
  “Sliding down these poles in the middle of the night with shorts on, it can rip all the leg hairs off of you.” — Eric Macintosh ([23:34])

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Important Timestamps

• Recalling a Big Fire: 00:49–02:01
• History of Volunteer & Paid Firefighting: 03:00–03:49
• Equipment and Costs: 05:53–07:11
• Daily Firefighter Routine at Station 28: 08:55–10:19
• Common Causes of Fires (Kitchens, Batteries): 11:51–12:07
• Growing Role of EMS: 14:44–16:07
• Statistical Decline in Fires/Increase in EMS: 16:07–17:04
• Unusual Fire Dept Calls (Rescues, Floods): 17:49–18:01
• Ambulance Shortage & Role of Firefighters: 18:56–19:34
• Cost Per Incident: 21:57
• Firefighter "Concierge Service": 22:44
• Anecdotes & Humorous Closing: 23:34

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Summary Takeaways

• Firefighters are busier than ever—even as fires decrease—because society increasingly relies on them for EMS and a wide variety of emergencies.
• The cost of maintaining modern fire departments is extremely high, but when weighed against the economic value of lives and property saved, the investment is amply justified.
• Firefighters proudly see themselves as adaptable troubleshooters, offering a "great big toolbox" for whatever the community needs.
• Economic logic merges with public service ethos: sometimes the most expensive response tool is also the one sitting closest, ready to save a life.

Transcript

[Kiana]

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[Zachary Crockett]

Eric Macintosh still has vivid memories of a particularly nasty fire that he fought 20 years ago. It was inside a country store in the coastal town of Half Moon Bay, California.

[Eric Macintosh]

It was the hottest fire I've been in. My helmet melted and I remember cans just exploding. The canned foods and thinking, man, what is happening in here? Just everywhere. It sounded like a war zone in there. We actually pulled people out pretty early in that fire because there was a collapse and then it became a defensive fire. So at that point, it's setting up our big water cannons that put out a thousand gallons a minute.

[Zachary Crockett]

The fire raged on for four hours, and it took nearly 100 firefighters and 25 trucks and engines to put it out. The entire two story structure eventually burned to the ground. It left nothing but the charred remnants of canned goods and cowboy boots. But thanks to McIntosh and his fellow firefighters, no one was hurt. And despite the heat and the danger, McIntosh says there's something he loved about the experience.

[Eric Macintosh]

The adrenaline's rolling. Your training that you've worked so hard for, you were able to put into play. You know, you hate to say it, but you feel great. But then, of course, the adrenaline fades and just exhaustion.

[Zachary Crockett]

This is the storybook version of firefighting. Brave heroes battling infernos and saving lives. In reality, feats like that are increasingly rare. Thanks to safety regulations and new technologies, there are fewer fires than ever. But the number of salaried firefighters keeps growing. And that has a lot to do with the changing nature of the job.

[Joshua Hurwitz]

Overall, fire departments are busier than ever, but the distribution of call types has changed. So whereas fire incidents fell by more than 40% in three decades, the volume of EMS responses exploded nearly 250%.

[Zachary Crockett]

For the Freakonomics radio network, this is the economics of everyday things. I'm Zachary Crockett Today, firefighters fighting fires used to be the general public's responsibility. During colonial times, homeowners were required to keep water buckets on hand and respond to local emergencies. By the early 1800s, private firefighting brigades had emerged in many cities. They were staffed by volunteers, but their service was not free. If you weren't a paying customer, you were out of luck.

[Steve Peagram]

That's how they started out. You subscribed or paid them an annual fee and then they would come put your fire out. If you didn't pay anybody the fee, you would have to negotiate with them before they would deploy and put your fire out.

[Zachary Crockett]

That is Steve Peagram. He's a recently retired fire chief who worked in the fire service for more than 30 years in New Jersey and Ohio.

[Steve Peagram]

My wife would tell you that I'm a fire dork. Like, I really don't have any other interests. It's all I read. If I'm on my iPad, I'm watching fire videos. If I'm reading a book, it's a fire book. If I'm reading a magazine, it's a fire magazine.

[Zachary Crockett]

Pegram says firefighting has come a long way since the early days. There are now 29,000 departments and more than a million firefighters across the country, around 65% of whom are volunteers. Most departments are now funded through some combination of municipal taxes, grants and fundraising efforts. And putting out fires is a public service rather than a profit making business, really.

[Steve Peagram]

The fire department is insurance for the community. I don't think the fire service ever looks at it from an economic standpoint. I mean, it's about saving lives first, saving property second. And firefighters in general are extremely aggressive at that mission, almost to a fault.

[Zachary Crockett]

Like a lot of firefighters, Pegram fell in love with the profession when he was a kid.

[Steve Peagram]

I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, so hearing sirens and fire trucks running up and down the street all the time, the hook was in when I think I was probably about 2. By the time I was 10 or 12, I was hanging around the local firehouse in New York City, and all the guys there knew me and riding my bicycle, chasing fire trucks. I volunteered all through high school. As soon as I turned 18, I got all my certifications and continued on.

[Zachary Crockett]

Pegram went on to work as a fire inspector and a firefighter before working his way up the ranks into administration. As a fire chief in Goshen, Ohio, he was responsible for managing the township's fire budget. And he says fighting fires is not cheap.

[Steve Peagram]

In firing ems, everything is just astronomically expensive. So the cost of the Fire engine, the hose, the nozzles, the ladders, the tools, the extrication equipment, all the stuff the fire department needs to do their job.

[Zachary Crockett]

Most fire departments have both fire engines, which carry water and hoses that hook up to hydrants, and fire trucks, which carry ladders and special equipment. An engine can go for nearly a million dollars, and a ladder truck which is twice the size might cost closer to $2 million. That doesn't include the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment that goes on the truck, like pry bars, extension ladders, and hydraulic rescue tools. Then there's all the firefighters gear, which is only sold by a handful of companies that have to meet federal safety standards.

[Steve Peagram]

You can't just go buy a hard hat at Home Depot and wear it into a fire. You can't just go to Radio Shack and buy a walkie talkie for $250. We have to buy an intrinsically safe, NIMS compliant yada yada yada radio that costs $7,500. And we're not buying that radio because we want a fancy radio. We're buying that radio because that's the only radio that will work on the system that we have.

[Zachary Crockett]

Outfitting a single firefighter with personal protective equipment, helmets, coats, pants, boots, gloves, a thermal imager, a radio and a breathing apparatus can cost as much as $20,000. And while there are more cost effective options on the market, spending money on the highest quality stuff ultimately has a net benefit in the long run.

[Steve Peagram]

Typically, if you're buying a cheaper set of gear, the protection it's going to afford your firefighters goes down, then it's a risk. You know, what if the gear fails and they get burnt? So maybe we saved a couple thousand dollars on gear, but now we have a million dollar workers comp claim. If you've had some significant injuries, people that required surgery, or you know, God forbid, a line of duty, death insurance costs can be astronomical.

[Zachary Crockett]

In most small towns, fire departments are run by volunteers and have very low labor costs. Only 9% of departments are made up entirely of full time salaried firefighters. But this small sliver protects half the US population. At these outfits, anywhere from 75% to 90% of the budget goes to salaries, healthcare and pension. After accounting for fixed costs, Pekram says that only around $200,000 of his department's $3.5 million budget was usually left over for operations. Fire stations may be costly to run, but the payoff is an emergency concierge service that is at the public's beck and call. 24 7, station 28.

[Eric Macintosh]

Test ring down division 28. Test ring down station 28. Yeah. Thank you.

[Zachary Crockett]

A few weeks ago, I went to Station 28 in Foster City, California to talk to Eric Mackintosh, the guy whose helmet melted while fighting a fire in a country store in Half Moon Bay. Today, he's the administrative battalion fire chief for San Mateo Consolidated Fire Department. The department oversees nine fire stations, around 130 firefighters across three cities in the San Francisco Bay area. A shift at Station 28 begins at 8am the crew usually arrives at 7 to talk through the day over a strong pot of coffee. Then it's time for some routine maintenance,

[Eric Macintosh]

what we call our morning checks, which includes, you know, checking out the fire engine, the tires, the brakes, all of that. We'll also check out all of our equipment, make sure everything's where it's supposed to be, and that's in good shape. Then we will start our station cleanup. So it's, you know, cleaning toilets, it's taking out the trash. It's just making everything, you know, clean and nice. Washing the fire engine.

[Zachary Crockett]

Most firefighters live in the station round the clock for a day or two at a time. Then they're off for two or three days. At San Mateo Consolidated, Firefighters do two days on, four days off. And during those two days, they're on call the whole time.

[Eric Macintosh]

If a call comes in, obviously we drop everything. So if we're in the middle of scrubbing a toilet, taking a shower, eating lunch, whatever it is, we drop what we're doing and respond.

[Zachary Crockett]

When a call comes into the station, every second counts. That's why many stations, including Station 28, still use fire poles. They're faster and safer than running downstairs.

[Eric Macintosh]

Our expectation is our crews are on the engine and out the door within one minute at night. Our goal is two minutes because, you know, you have to wake up, you have to get down there from being at a dead sleep. So we give them a little bit of grace, I guess.

[Zachary Crockett]

The department's average Response time from 911 call to arriving at the scene is just under five and a half minutes. That kind of urgency is especially appreciated when there's a fire around the U.S. local fire teams like Station 28 respond to around 1.5 million fires each year, which cause an estimated $18 billion in property damage. The National Fire Protection association groups these fires into three categories. There are structure fires, which affect single family homes, businesses and other buildings. There are vehicle fires, and there are outdoor fires, which can be anything from a brush fire to a literal dumpster fire. McIntosh says that most fires his department responds to start in the kitchen.

[Eric Macintosh]

I would say the majority of them are cooking. So somebody either putting some food on the stove and then forgetting that they have it on there, and then they go shopping.

[Zachary Crockett]

But he's also noticed an uptick in other culprits.

[Eric Macintosh]

We are seeing a big increase in lithium ion battery fires. That is kind of a new phenomena for us in the fire service. Obviously, lithium ion batteries are everywhere now in, you know, phones and computers. The electric vehicle fires require an amazing amount of water to put them out. Just continuous. Even when we put them out, they can reignite. But on top of that, we're seeing a lot of hoverboards or electric scooters or electric skateboards. And just recently, we had a hoverboard charging next to a kid's bed, and the charger was for an older hoverboard, and it exploded. It caught the floor on fire. Ended up having some burns in the ceiling from the batteries exploding.

[Zachary Crockett]

But at many departments, fighting fires has become a relatively rare part of the job. In recent decades, firefighters have essentially become publicly funded EMTs. That's coming up.

[Steve Peagram]

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[Eric Macintosh]

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[Zachary Crockett]

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[Eric Macintosh]

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[Zachary Crockett]

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[Eric Macintosh]

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[Kiana]

I'm Kiana, and I leveled up my business with Shopify. Once I figured out that Shopify was a thing, I never turned back. I can create a site with my eyes closed. Shopify thinks ahead of us, you know, and it thinks about the customer more than anything. Every day I'm thinking about some other new business, but Shopify is doing it to me because it's so easy to use. It's like, I can't stop. I'm addicted. Start your free [e-mail].

[Eric Macintosh]

Jackson is over here cooking lunch for the cruise. And so this is the kitchen area.

[Steve Peagram]

Thanks for watching.

[Zachary Crockett]

A little steak and goat cheese salad

[Steve Peagram]

with little candy walnuts. Wow.

[Zachary Crockett]

Last year, San Mateo consolidated responded to 19,719 calls across its nine stations. But only 3% of those calls were fires.

[Eric Macintosh]

This year alone, we have averaged around four structure fires per month. So that's not a lot, you know,

[Zachary Crockett]

and those four fires, most of them don't require much action.

[Eric Macintosh]

I would say three of them are extinguished with the sprinkler system that has been installed in the building or by a resident who grabbed one of the fire extinguishers prior to us even getting there.

[Zachary Crockett]

This isn't an isolated phenomenon. A few years ago, Joshua Hurwitz, then a PhD candidate in economics at Harvard, decided to write his dissertation on firefighting. He took a look at data from the National Fire Protection association, the U.S. fire Administration, the National Fire Incident Reporting System, and government census reports. He focused specifically on salaried departments that serve a population of at least 20,000 people. And he found that between 1987 and 2017, the number of fires in this sample dropped significantly.

[Joshua Hurwitz]

Structure fires were down by 34%. Vehicle fires were down nearly 60%. Outside fires were down more than 40%, and then all other fire types by more than 50%. So on a population weighted basis, total fire incidents fell by nearly 60% over three decades. So about 10 fires per 1,000 citizens to about four. Both the number of firefighter and civilian deaths and injuries from fire decline proportionally with incidents.

[Zachary Crockett]

These declines can be attributed to better fire prevention efforts.

[Joshua Hurwitz]

There's many contributing factors, including the development and enforcement of stricter building codes, the increased prevalence of fire retardant building materials, proliferation of alarms and sprinklers, education efforts.

[Zachary Crockett]

With fewer fires, you might think we'd need fewer firefighters to fight them. In fact, Hurwitz found, we've ended up with more.

[Joshua Hurwitz]

The number of salaried firefighters increased by 54%.

[Zachary Crockett]

So if there's been a decline in fires, why aren't cities and counties closing the firehouses and redirecting money to other public services? Because, it turns out, demand for firefighters is higher than ever. Nationally, fire departments respond to more than 36 million calls each year, more than three times as many as they did three decades ago. But fewer of these calls, less than 4%, are about fires. So what exactly do firefighters do all day?

[Steve Peagram]

The fire department does a lot more than just fight fires.

[Zachary Crockett]

Again, that's Steve Pegram.

[Steve Peagram]

I've spent four hours on a pig rescue getting a pig that fell into a hole. I've been on horse rescues. I've been on cow rescues. I've been on flooded basements, you know, houses with six feet of water in the basement.

[Zachary Crockett]

Beyond the weird Stuff. Pekram says there's one type of call in particular that occupies today's departments.

[Steve Peagram]

There's a lot of places where the local fire department is who people call for a headache, for back pain, for things that might be very minor to you and me, but in their world, that's an emergency. They don't know who else to call. So we've seen a lot of that. And most fire departments report that probably 80% of the calls they respond to are EMS.

[Zachary Crockett]

EMS, or emergency medical Services, is a catch all term for the treatment of medical emergencies like strokes, heart attacks and drug overdoses before the patient makes it to a hospital. The modern EMS system traces its roots back to the 1950s. Back then, if you needed a ride to the hospital, the local funeral home would help you out.

[Steve Peagram]

They had some basic first aid training and they would respond with actually the hearse and pick up people and take them to the hospital. And if the person passed away, then the same hearse would pick them up and take them to the funeral home.

[Zachary Crockett]

In the following decades, funeral homes and hearses were replaced by ambulances. Today, most ambulances in the US are operated by private companies. This leaves many places with shortages. In San Mateo county, where McIntosh lives, there are only around 20ambulances on the road at any given time to serve a population of 730,000 people.

[Eric Macintosh]

The response time is often 10, 15 minutes. For somebody who is choking or having a heart attack, that is obviously way too long. The struggle, of course, is economics. You know, I mean, it's just that ambulance agencies, at least in this county, is a for profit agency, so they need to make money, you know, and if they had 30ambulances on the road every day, they wouldn't be able to survive financially.

[Zachary Crockett]

So fire departments have been integrated into the EMS system to plug the gap. Many stations now have full time EMTs or paramedics on staff. Fire engines are deployed to answer basic medical calls, and they're usually able to get to the scene much faster than ambulances, which are often stuck waiting in long queues at the ER.

[Steve Peagram]

A lot of times people say, oh, I called 911 for an ambulance and a fire truck showed up first. So in most communities they use computer aided dispatch. If a fire engine is closer to a call than an ambulance per se, they will send both, because the goal is to get care to that person. And if we can get a paramedic or an EMT on a fire truck to that person and start treating their medical emergency, the chances of a better outcome are going to go up drastically than if we just wait for the ambulance that might be 15 minutes away.

[Zachary Crockett]

Now, using a $2 million fire truck instead of a $125,000ambulance to respond to a stroke or heart attack is not an ideal allocation of resources. The same argument applies to labor costs. Here's Joshua Hurwitz.

[Joshua Hurwitz]

The median pay for EMTs is less than 80% of firefighters, and that total compensation gap can be much larger in big cities, especially with tenure. Fire engines are also considerably more expensive than ambulances. They often cost, you know, five to ten times as much. They have higher maintenance costs. They typically require more personnel. But in a system where you already have fire engine units that are strategically located throughout cities and they're already salaried firefighters, you know, the marginal cost of sending them to first response, especially when ambulance units might be busy, is low.

[Zachary Crockett]

As a part of his paper, Hurwitz also used compensation and call response data to calculate the cost of a single firefighter response.

[Joshua Hurwitz]

And on average, this implied a minimum of just over $400 per response.

[Zachary Crockett]

This estimate includes all types of responses, fires, EMS calls, and even false alarms. So sending a fire crew to respond to an asthma attack might not be as cost effective as saving 10 people from a burning building. But Hurwitz says that either way, firefighters are worth many times what they're paid.

[Joshua Hurwitz]

Given the economic value that we place on life, a single save by a firefighter over a career can more than outweigh total employment costs.

[Zachary Crockett]

And no matter what kind of call is coming into the station, Steve Peagram's old crew will be there in a matter of minutes to offer a helping hand.

[Steve Peagram]

So there's always been a saying in the fire service that, you know, they don't deny service to anybody. I mean, they will help you change a tire. They'll give grandma cpr. They'll dive into a pond to rescue a drowning child. Maybe it's not a fire, but they have a great big toolbox and a whole bunch of really smart men and women that can fix problems.

[Zachary Crockett]

For the economics of everyday things, I'm Zachary Crockett. This episode was produced by me and Sarah Lilly and mixed by Jeremy Johnston. We had help from Daniel Moritz Rapson. Special thanks to listener Robin hall for suggesting this topic.

[Eric Macintosh]

Sliding down these poles in the middle of the night with shorts on, it can rip all the leg hairs off of you.

[Zachary Crockett]

The Freakonomics Radio Network. The hidden side of everything.

[Steve Peagram]

You never forget your first fan.

[Kiana]

So how was practice, kiddo?

[Steve Peagram]

My mom inspired me to dream big and asked myself, what would you like the power to do. My answers helped me become the soccer player I am today, trusting my instincts and stepping onto the pitch without fear.

[Kiana]

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[Eric Macintosh]

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[Zachary Crockett]

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[Eric Macintosh]

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[Steve Peagram]

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[Steve Peagram]

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[Joshua Hurwitz]

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