Cultivating Curiosity

Alright, and we're recording. Hello, everyone! Thanks for tuning in to The Human Behavior Podcast. I'm Brian, and of course, we have Greg with us, as always. Greg, good morning! How are you doing there in Gunnison, Colorado?

Morning, buddy! It's a beautiful day, ready to go.

Very well today. The topic is what we're calling "Cultivating Curiosity." And that's sort of what we're calling it, what we're doing, and it's sort of what we do and what we talk about on the podcast. What we train folks to do and what we mean is, everyone gets into reading human behavior and trying to understand it, and they sort of already start at an end state. We always like to wind that tape back. You have to start somewhere.

Then there are all kinds of different terms we use and other people use as well, like "anomalies" and "incongruent signals." And then for the law enforcement folks we work with, "what's reasonable suspicion? What's probable cause?" That's a process to do, and it all starts with being curious with your environment.

If there was always one takeaway that I could always teach people, or if people always ask, "Hey, how do I get better at reading a situation or understanding human behavior?" I used to always say, "Just be curious with your environment." There's so much out there and there are so many signals and things that we miss nowadays for different reasons. We're busy with technology; everyone's curious on Instagram and social media, but they're not curious when they're walking around outside at the mall or in the parking lot.

So, we always like to say that's sort of the big end of the funnel: cultivating curiosity. For today's discussion, Greg, I want to get into a few of those areas, like, why aren't we as curious anymore as we used to be? But really, how do I cultivate curiosity? I even look at it from my kids. How do I do that with the Insurgent (his daughter) and now the terrorist (his son)? He's a little young, but I just want to cultivate that curiosity, and what that leads to throughout their life is whatever.

But I remember I knew that I had been doing well with the Insurgent when she was younger. She was probably six or seven. We were driving, and I was looking out the left window, looking for a place to park. Then she just goes from the backseat, "Hey, that's weird!" And I'm like, "What's up, Pun? What do you got?" And she goes, "Oh, the guy's just got a sweatshirt on with his hood up, and it's really hot outside today," because it was the middle of summer. I was like, "Yeah, that is weird. That's not typical, something you see." I was so happy because it was just her looking out the window and attributing value to this seemingly innocuous observation where most people would go past. She was curious and went, "Hmm, I wonder why he'd be wearing that. That's not typical."

I have no idea what the situation was; I never saw the guy again or anything. It doesn't matter. But the fact that she had gone from just being a little kid—because in general, kids are more curious with their environment because they don't know anything, right? So when you get the head tilt, when they're looking, it's because they have to process everything. The things that we take for granted, things we don't even see anymore, they're still seeing and are so curious with everything.

Now, the little guy, Max, is at that stage where everything's "Whoa!" and he points at everything and "Oh, look at this!" He makes these little sounds because he can't even talk yet. It's so cool. I just mimic him, and then it's funny because he thinks I know what he's talking about, which I don't, but I just mimic it to really cultivate that. That's what I try to do with humans in general. So it always starts with that. We'll deep dive what all this stuff means and sort of that funnel analogy that I know you'll get into. But let's start with cultivating curiosity, Greg. How do I do that? Why? And maybe even before that, why do I need to do that? What's the point?

So I already got a bunch of notes because you always start right in. I mean, you boot the door and throw in a flashbang and say hello, and that's a great way to start any...

Welcome to the party!

Exactly! So tell the Insurgent the only thing she has to change is the word "weird" to "interesting." "Interesting" is a great term. And when somebody says "weird," it's a lower level of somebody saying, "Hey, that's suspicious." Those are words we want to avoid because they pigeonhole us into a likely outcome when an outcome doesn't exist yet. We don't have all the information.

That's a really good point. I just want to hit on that real quick because some people will kind of get us wrong on social media or won't understand the context when they think... they'll literally say, they'll comment in a video, "Oh, there's nothing suspicious about that." But if you go back and watch the video, we actually never said the word "suspicious." They put that in there. So that's actually a really great point, which is at the end of that funnel: reasonable suspicion comes after a whole bunch of other steps.

So, I know you bring that up: the "weird," the "odd," the "different." I would say our view of what's typical, what's normal human behavior, is probably much bigger than what most people... Most people are... where we're always like, someone's like, "Hey, isn't that weird? Isn't that...?" We're like, "No, that's just a person being a person." But what we find interesting is also probably greater than most people. So I want to hit up with that, but I...

So that led right into the second thing I wrote down while you were talking: normal. The definition we use of "normal" is clinically typical. We're talking about clinically normal, what one should expect in this environment based on historical perspective. You know, what type of environment it is, is the baseline: financial, fiduciary relationship, social, physiological. There's a whole bunch of those lists, and you said it correctly. I'll get to it in just a minute.

But you've got to remember, when people look at these, being odd or being weird doesn't mean that you're up to anything. We meet unique people every day. It's normal. I mean, absolutely normal, especially at certain points in your life, you know what I'm saying? You know me, you've known me for a long time, and if you classified me, I would guarantee "weird" or "odd" or "unique" would be in all of your descriptions. And that's okay.

Look, you're so Gladwell-ed up that you're looking for an outlier and you're not using incongruence as your guide. And what I mean by that is, we'll go all over curiosity, but might as well bring up your funnel right away just so people can keep track. Get out your yellow pad for a second and remember that we're preconditioned for everything in our environments based on fear. We were supposed to live a long time, so fear was the healthiest emotion that we had to avoid potential danger in any environment.

So our curiosity was... we're born with the desire to learn and explore our environment, to seek out new experiences and knowledge. Our genes, our environmental influences, drive curiosity. That trait is absolutely vital in our brain growth and our learning. And we have drugs like dopamine that are on to promote novelty-seeking behavior, which means that we have to look at the unique, the novel, the unconventional sometimes and go, "Hey, that's a better idea! That guy's got wheels! Homer Simpson, what a sucker! That guy has something to breathe for. What am I doing wrong?" I mean, you've got to think that way. Those are fear-induced, emotion-based attributes, let's call them, that all successful human tribes possess.

So, if you have the lowest level—and there's obviously levels to the left and right of any fundamental hierarchy you build—but the very simplest way is to take out a funnel from your kitchen right now and hold it up in front of you, or on a yellow pad, draw a very simple funnel with a wide end and a narrow end. On the furthest left, the widest end of it (left for me) is my curiosity. So that's my environment, that's being generally curious in my environment and wanting to seek out things that I'm not sure of.

Then the very next thing is that drives me to "interesting." "Well, that's interesting. I've seen those before, but that one? That's interesting. I want to know more about that." And then as the funnel necks down a little bit, now we have "anomalous." "Well, that's a very unusual thing compared to these things in the baseline that rises above or falls below my baseline, or it's exactly the BOLO (be on the lookout) of things that I'm looking for: a person, a vehicle, a house."

Then the next thing is, "Well, now I have what's called reasonable suspicion," based on those things: the curiosity, the level of interest, the anomalies that are present. If I have three or more of those anomalies, I say, "Hey, guess what? Now I have a reasonable suspicion to protract, to increase my surveillance or observation, or go across and ask some perfunctory questions." And what does that lead us to? That leads us to probable cause.

And somebody listening right now, going, "Okay, wise guy, I'm not a copper. I don't give a damn." I don't care what you are. If you're a copper, or if you're a gosh-darn housewife or house-husband, or teacher, HR (Human Resources), all of those situations, Brian, facilitate, necessitate us being curious. It's the healthy attributes that go along with it: challenging assumptions and beliefs, and asking questions, and being open-minded, and observing, and then analyzing—observing then analyzing—the world around you, investigating those conundrums, those mysteries around you, exploring them. That's what, first of all, keeps us safe.

A healthy brain will aggregate toward you. You must have it to keep that dopamine flowing. And dopamine will present itself to keep you curious. And, you know, it's a constant fight with age to remain curious because the problem is that we get older, Brian, and those effects dampen because we're convinced we've seen it all, we've seen everything. Our unchecked ego. And then again, like that, you know, we're constantly looking for a Gladwell guide—and that's twice I've mentioned Gladwell, dude, I've bought every one of your books, I love almost everything, the last one blows—but the idea is that you rush flash-to-bang. You rush the judgment too quickly for how true curiosity occurs. Curiosity was on board, it waned. We need to get it back, and it has to be cultivated. It has to be taught and trained, or you won't do it naturally.

Yeah. No, and then that brings me right back to the start of that funnel. So you broke down the whole funnel and how that works, and I appreciate it. That's the thing: it can be taught, it can be trained to be curious. Because that's what a lot of people do, right? They want to go right to, "Well, what am I supposed to look for in my environment? What am I supposed to do?" People try to put out all these different things, or "Look for the van with the something in its windows and go knock on it and for giving a hand signal." It's like, dude, a lot of that stuff is social media garbage, and it's clickbait, and it's not even true, and it's BS. I wouldn't go knocking on anyone's van. I would never give that as advice.

But anyway, to be curious... this is why we talk about and give examples of doing the scavenger hunt and saying, "Go take photos of things, and go find the feral cat—a cat hiding underneath the car—and go take pictures of ladders and shopping carts." And people are like, "That doesn't make, that's not going to lead to anything!" It's like, "No, that's how you become curious in your environment. That's how you get to learn to look into negative space."

The feral cat does not walk down the middle of the street, showing its, you know, like, "Hey, I'm the boss here." Where does it go? It hides underneath the car, it goes in between buildings. That's negative space. That's what criminals have to do. That's what people who are trying to hide out, that know that people are looking for them, act in that manner. So if I can spot a feral cat hiding out in my neighborhood—one, if the other—well, if I can do that, I can find anything.

But the reason we give you tangible things to look for and understand is because, guess what? You'll find them. And then your brain goes, "Oh, I get it! Ooh, a piece of candy! I'm now more curious," rather than just saying, "Look for the guy kidnapping a kid." You're never going to see that. You're... the chances of you ever seeing something like that are astronomically small. But you will see a ladder. You will see a shopping cart where it doesn't belong. You will see a feral cat. So now I'm cultivating curiosity. Now my brain's going, "Ooh, I get this game! This is fun. I just won a little bit. I got a little dopamine. I want to keep playing!" And you keep doing that over and over again.

And then you're going to get to the point where you're going, "Oh, wow, that's interesting! There's a dope deal going on in the Home Depot parking lot right now, and I got my kids with me. I'm out of here," or whatever the situation is, right? The idea is, those are all the pre-event indicators. Those are how I do that. So when we talk about those things, it's not as a joke, it's not as, "Oh, that's a funny story," or "that's amusing." It's like, "No, go do it." And once you see those things for what they could be, once you see a ladder for something that gives you access—and criminals need access—not everyone carrying a ladder is a criminal. In fact, almost none of them are. In fact, the criminal usually steals the ladder from somewhere or comes across it and just uses it because it's in the environment. But the whole point was, if I don't attribute value to that non-standard observation, I'm never going to do that. And that's how we cultivate that curiosity.

Yeah, millions and millions of screwdrivers are created each week, and a small, virtually insignificant number of them are used in homicides or burglaries. But that doesn't mean that you should discount it when you see it sticking out of somebody's back pocket walking through the mall. You understand that now. And meaning that the people that are listening to you, do you understand what Brian just said? Brian just equated a scavenger hunt with not just understanding the principles that we teach in class and the modules, but demonstrating that you can do it on your own. Because it goes right back, Brian, you know I love cars and fishing. When I'm talking about a thing, the Purlin and the Gasham warning lights on a car, and I talk about fishing, how to learn the etymology of the stream that you're fishing. Well, the scavenger hunt is that fly-fishing experience where now you show me by choosing the right leader, the right tippet, the right lure, and catching that damn fish. And I don't give a damn how big the fish is, Brian, I give a damn that you followed, loosely or exactly, the principles that were bestowed on you, that transfer of knowledge, and you were able to utilize it. And guess what? I know that if you catch one, or even if you get a bite, even if you get one that breaks the water, man, you're going to want to do more of it.

Yeah, literally and figuratively, right?

The idea is that those aren't negative outcomes. Those are all positive conditioning things for your brain because once you teach your brain, "Where's Waldo?" your brain will love that forever. The problem with teaching a person a deliberate standard, "Here's the things to look for," is you're excluding all the things from their life, their historical perspective, their biases. Those can be healthy things we want.

And we use "cultivate." We didn't come with the word just in happenstance. We're sitting on a toilet and we go, "Cultivate!" and, you know, yell it out to Brian. The idea is that, you know, how do you prepare the ground to plant a seed and have it grow? And then once it grows, how do you keep it alive and nurture it? And that's exactly what this is. Look, we are intellectually lazy now, and social media has put its foot on the scale, and it's going to be a long, long time before it comes off. Laziness caused by decreased level of motivation is a simple way of thinking of it, but the lack of interest is the deadly part. The lack of interest leads to a lack of confidence, which means that you're not going to continue searching your environment or being curious. And that's a teeter-totter again. It's so dangerous.

And what's that caused by? Overstimulation, excessive external impulse, excessive distractions, all of which we can accredit to television, social media. Do you have any idea how much time we spend doing useless crap?

Yeah, well, that's, and that's part of the, that's part of why social media works so well is because it, it's seemingly very interesting, even though it's all, a lot of it's 90% of it's the same stuff, just in different form. But it's the same thing. It actually sort of hijacks that part of your brain where you used to have to do that out in your environment. And now it's doing it. So it's not that it's, it's not that the thing is bad. It's just this, we're wired for that, and and so, so we this now takes over instead of something else in our environment.

Right. I've got a perfect example of that. So yesterday you stymied me. I was gobsmacked because you were talking about Missouri, and we were talking about one of the operations that we've got going. And we've already got an operation going in Tennessee, and the idea was, "Well, you know, Missouri touches Tennessee." And I'm sitting there, in my mind, I've got the globe, and then I've got the map of the United States, and I've got the 50 states, and I'm going down. I'm going, "How the hell is he telling me that Tennessee borders Missouri?" Well, it does! It's really tiny.

But I never considered that because when I was playing with the blocks as a kid, putting the states where they fit, I know Kentucky, then Tennessee, then we come down to Georgia and Florida. And I never went west with that mind and said, "Oh, these are the states that go around." I do it with Colorado because, you know, there's a Four Corners. You're in that area.

The square state.

What I'm saying is so much easier. But that's exactly what we're talking about. So what happened there, Brian, is you said that, and my intellectual curiosity kicked off. That's amazing because we both learned something from that. You learned I'm geographically an idiot, and I learned that, "Holy crap, Tennessee touches Missouri!" And you're going, "Okay, so what?" So what? We have no idea the cornucopia effects of all of that accumulated knowledge and experience because we can't compare stuff if we don't have stuff with which to compare it.

And that's what this is all about. This is about, again, going back to that suspicion, anybody that thinks that manner, kiss my ass! That's not at all what we're saying. As a matter of fact, we're never saying that the stuff that you find is going to be illegal. We're saying that you can determine dangerous or opportunistic in your environment by conducting observation. And not just observation and perspective or perception, but a perspective that's unique by training you in a manner of organizing the way that you see things. So we're not teaching you what to look for, we're teaching you how to look. And that's the critical difference. It's scientific, and it's supported by your brain and your brain's chemistry, and it's supported by every scientist that's ever walked the face of the planet. So stop trying to fight it. Accept it.

And so, so that's what, I guess the next sort of part of it would be, you know, we talk about curiosity and cultivating curiosity. And then what a lot of people ask, which is a great question, is, "Well, what is interesting? What do you guys find interesting?" And it's not a specific list, it's always something in the environment. It's something that, but technically, Greg, it does, it is kind of, we do have our own list of things that we find interesting. There are certain things that, based on our experiences...

Yeah.

But, and, and then some are shared, some aren't my experiences, but I learned that from you or some aren't your experience, but learned that from me or just, you know, whatever, or learned that from from whoever or wherever. But those things that we find interesting. And so that's that's a great one, that's a great question, is like, "What am I supposed to find interesting?" And, and so I, I'll, I'll let you answer that. But, but, you know, I, I'll put it this way: it's something that, you know, goes back to that using incongruence as a strategy. It's something that doesn't fit based on my past known.

So, what I can unpack there is whether it's the license plate from a place that you know doesn't typically come here or something like that. Like, when I was a kid, someone told me when I was a little kid that, you know, the U-Haul trucks, how they always have some like state or something painted on the side. And it's like, "Oh, Missouri or Louisiana," or whatever, and they got like a little image on there they used to. My, what someone had told me when I was a little kid was like, "Oh, that's where that truck is coming from." And I was like, "Oh, okay, like that's cool." And then I saw one, you know, we were on like, you know, I-80 on a family road trip, you know, somewhere. And I see one from Hawaii. And I was like, "Well, that's weird. Like, how did it get here from Hawaii?" So I'm like asking my parents, "How did that U-Haul get here from Hawaii?" And they're like, "Well, of course," they're like, "What the heck are you talking about?" That's like, I was like, "Well, you can't drive across the water. Do they ship the truck?" And they're like, they have no context where I'm going. But like, obviously, someone was just messing with me or whatever.

But the whole thing was like, "Oh, that's that's interesting." Now I can't give you a list of all those things, but I do find like, you know, open car doors are interesting to me. Broken glass is interesting to me. You know, all of those little things in the environment. But, but it really is, if I could put it in a big bucket, it would be pocket lint. Pocket lint is always interesting to me. Trash on the ground is, because I want to know what kind of trash that is because it tells me what activity is going on here. I want to know how long it's been out in the sun for. So it's like, it's, I can't give a full list. So I want to throw it to you to go like, what do you look for, or how do I look for those things that are interesting, or what's interesting to you, Greg?

Yeah, so I was heading to the Warren Police Station at dawn, so whatever time dawn was, and it was in the summer when schools are out. And I was stopped at a light on a road called Hoover that was right by the fire station. And I could smell the fire station. Firemen are the best cooks on the face of the planet, and they also have the best gyms. But they were already cooking barbecue. And I'm not a fan of barbecue, but I love the smell of barbecue. It gets me in all the right places, right? So I'm thinking about that, and I'm looking at the light, and across from me is the only other car on this early Sunday morning in the middle of gosh-darn summer. And there's four middle school-age kids, maybe early high school-age kids, sitting in a white Dodge Diplomat—that's how old I am. And on the side of the white Diplomat, it says, "Sterling School District."

Now I look at that. Now, Brian, if anybody's even mildly paying attention to what I'm saying, there's at least five or six things there that were very interesting to me. What are these kids doing up Sunday in the summertime? What are they doing? Are they the representatives from the school? "We don't use buses now, we really give the kids the thing." So, of course, I wait for the light to change, I do the U-turn in behind them, hit the red and blues, and it's off to the races. So the idea is that to develop curiosity is the first step to develop reasonable suspicion or probable cause. So you have to roll tape all the way back and take a look at things and go, "That's interesting!" Literally, I'm saying, say those two words when you look at something that you can't immediately explain away.

So the example of the Insurgent (his daughter) taking a look at the person that was overdressed for the situation, it's way too hot for that. She should point at it and say, "That's interesting!" And you're saying, "Really point at it?" Yes, when you're learning, that's the best thing to do for your brain because now your brain gets it: "Oh, Where's Waldo? I got it! That's what I want to do in future encounters." And guess what? Those things fall by the wayside when you get much more experience and you become a subject matter expert. But Brian, when we see a person take the stairs rather than the elevator... okay, is the elevator broken? Okay, you're saying, "Well, the person wants fitness." Well, I'm going to prove that. I'm going to be the person that goes up and goes, "Hey, why are you taking the damn stairs instead of the elevator?"

No, that, that's, let me, I want to hit on that example real quick because, um, that's something I do. Like, typically at every hotel we stay at, it's just part of my like movement. You know, like, I just, I like rather than taking the elevator, and I want to take the stairs. I don't get to work out as much when we're on the road. And you know who else takes the stairs? No one. Go into this stairwell of a hotel and it's like pristine, like it's like, "Oh, did you put new carpet in here and not anywhere else?" It's like, no, no one's ever stepped on it because people use the damn stairwell.

But that's a great thing. And, and what you went down, you, you, of you know, how you articulated everything you saw that was off with the kids in the car for all that reason, but you know, you, of course, started with the context, the baseline, "This is the time of day, this is when it was," and then, "this." So what you're doing is you're saying, "This is why I found those things interesting."

I was equally as interested in the barbecue. That's the key.

The key is...

...was fighting for your attention.

Yeah, so, so that, and that's the thing. And that's where, you know, people want to get those, those lists of things to look for. And, and, and those don't work. But, but those are things, I what I do like about those lists is like, "These are things you should find interesting." When someone comes in and they've, you know, all of a sudden clean shaven and new haircut and they've never been like that their entire life, well, yes, that's interesting because that's a, that's a novel, you know, observation.

And so when it comes to those lists and because you just, I, I, you, you, you articulated it while you were sitting there, but that's what those lists are good for. Here are some things to find interesting. But everything you talked about was, you started with, "Man, it was this time of day. It was this, this is where, this is the location I was at, this is what nearby, this is what I smelled, this is what I saw," and then all of a sudden this thing comes up. So it's like, I, I, if, if you had started with, "I looked at this vehicle and I saw that," like, it would have, it would have taken me listening to the story a much longer time to go, "Why is this relevant?" But when you laid out everything that was clinically normal, typical for for that day and time, when you just laid out that baseline, as soon as you saw, even when you said four younger kids in a car already, before you even got to the type of car and what was put on the side, like, I'm already going like, "What are they doing up that early on a Sunday? Where are they going? What's happening?" Like, like no one does that. I mean, you do. But what everyone wants to do is then, "Well, it could have been anything! They could have..." It's like, "Yes, you're right, sure." But, but, but this is why it's interesting to me.

This is where I'm more interesting than the barbecue. It became more interesting than thinking I was going to check out of my Scout car and go over to the fire department and see what latest hoax they were up to to gain money or to get people to love them. Everyone loves firemen. Oh, they all love firemen. Let's go back to that, the elevator versus the stairs. So equally, I find your observation being profoundly accurate. So the stairwells are in pristine condition, and the only other time that I find people lingering is when they're smoking. They're clandestinely smoking. They can't smoke in the room, there's no smoking allowed on the property, they don't have a designated smoker, the weather's bad outside. So what do they do? They go a floor down or a floor up, and they try to smoke a little bit of their cigarette, and they go back. And you can smell that. And sometimes it's not a cigarette, it's one of those special cigarettes.

But the idea there is that you're not necessarily looking like, if you're a cop and you're listening to this broadcast, "Yeah, can you use this to find criminality?" Of course. "If you're a soldier, can you use this to find a terrorist underpinnings?" Of course, you can. But what we're saying is just being curious in your environment. Like people say, "being situationally aware." Okay, you have no idea what that means first of all, so stop using it. Second of all, you read it somewhere in a book that said, "That's good," and now you made a business out of selling that to people. I would much rather you stop and slow down and teach people how to be curious. Even mildly curious will increase your survivability in any environment.

I'll give you a quick example, all the way back to Iraq. So I'm in Iraq, and I'm part of a convoy. And I want, I don't want to be in the convoy because I'm better out on foot. But we've got to cover more ground, and the sniper rounds are pinging off. And we stop at one part of the city, and a guy's on the binos, and he goes, "Bring up the profiler!" Honest to God, Brian, it was one of those situations, right? So I come up, and this is all new to everybody, but they're trying to push me out, say, "Show me your magic." And so they look, and they see this ant trail, we used to call it, the dirt going from left to right across the street that the first MRP (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected) is about to poke across, right? And so the idea is, you know, it's command-detonated IED (Improvised Explosive Device). "Let's go another way!" And they go, "Well, how did you make that assumption?" And I'm like, "What else could have caused that dirt in a row across this residential street? There's no gardens on either side. There's no agricultural business here. There's nothing that somebody would have bumped into, like sometimes when you go across a bridge for example, dust or something will fall out from the bottom of that bridge."

Dump truck, even, like where it hits a bump and it like, it's dropping off.

Or an old fan that hasn't used in a while, when it starts. Okay, well, none of those things were in existence. And they go, "Well, can you be sure?" I go, "Hell no, I can't be sure! But I'll tell you what, I'm a lot more sure than you are, and the idea is I'm not going down there!" Okay? And so finally, what they did is they sent out their EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) guys, and they go, "God, this guy's remarkable!" I'm not remarkable. I'm unique in the manner that I let my curiosity be my guide. And that goes to interesting. And when interesting is there, plus anomalous behavior, Brian, that door is already shining open. And it's a woman or The Lady or the Tiger, you remember those things back then? It's the adventure book where I go left or I go right, and if I go left, I get hit by the meteor. So I don't want to go left.

And the idea is that's the same thing: is that a cell phone or a gun on that guy's belt? Okay, that's interesting. But, you know what's more interesting? Why is that guy checking his six before he goes into the 7-Eleven? Why didn't he come with a car and he came from behind the building when everybody else is coming from the gas pumps? Do you understand how that builds? So, so now my interest is piqued. And when my interest is piqued, I stop orienting to the rest of my surroundings. I orient to the thing that's interesting, and I increase my perception and observation skills on narrowing the field of things that I want to pay attention to because I only have so much attention. And those things always have paid out in my entire career and made me more successful than other people.

And so let's, let's sort of hit on when, you know, curiosity or interesting goes, goes too far is when we try to create or establish some explanatory storyline, which is what your brain wants. But we go way off the reservation. I mean, you just did it with that one where you went, "Well, how can you be sure?" And you're like, "I can't!" You can't until something happens. You can't be completely sure. So that's why it's like, "I've got to open the box, right?"

The simplest answer. And we're talking about curiosity here, and hats are very curious. So think back to, unless I unpack more, I'm not going to know. But is the juice worth the squeeze on that one? And you know the simple answer, "No, we're a bunch of people in a row ready to drive over a bomb. Come on!"

And and this is where, where, you know, if you have the the tacit knowledge, it can, it can certainly help. You know, it just reminded me of that, um, when we were down in Florida with those, uh, the law enforcement officers down there and the one, um, officer, she was with her husband, who's also, um, police officer as well. But she had a great story from, you know, at like a, I think it was a store. It was like a big, you know, grocery store kind of thing. But you saw a guy when they're outside, and he had a backpack on. And, you know, there was, I don't know, something about him caught my attention. He went into the store. So my husband went in, I stayed out in the parking lot. And sure enough, like, he calls me and it's like, "Yeah, he's running out right now! He's got a bunch of stuff!" Right? He went in there and stole some things and ran out.

And it, and I, and what it is, is, is, you know, she, like most people, even with a lot of experience, couldn't quite articulate what it was because it wasn't the kids after school who all walk in with their book bags on and get, get a Coke and get a candy bar, get whatever, and then leave. There was something different about this individual walking in with an empty backpack. You know, and, and I was like, yeah, he was exhibiting mission focus. He was, he was checking his six. He was looking like all of those different things because he was very situationally aware, um, because he was about to go commit a crime and he knew people didn't want to get caught. So it was, sometimes it's articulating it, but, but it's, it's, I, it's, it was great because she was like, "It was just interesting to me." And I was like, "Yes!" And you couldn't prove it. Like, she couldn't go up and say, "Hey, I know you're about to go in there and steal something!"

Well, technically, can, right? Of course. So, okay, so there's two things there, and they're both important to discuss, and Brian brought them up. So I'm just going to dovetail on what he's saying just to make sure that you add emphasis to it. So, are there any downsides to curiosity? Yeah, excessive curiosity can lead to risky behavior or privacy invasion. So make sure that you're in the right place at the right time. Stay out of my life!

Well, you know, my thing is like a hotel room door. Whenever I see one that's open and I don't see the people are cleaning the rooms around there, I'm very interested, right? But what I don't do is I don't knock and go in and go, "Hey, do you know your damn door's open?" You know what I'm saying? I don't want to get shot in a bean, right? So the other thing is that, that, you know, I have to understand that the only negative outcomes that I can predict will come from the conflict, "Are you saying I'm a criminal? Are you saying I'm...?" And that's better left to the professionals that can de-escalate that. Store security, like Shelley and I at Walmart, probably at least once a month have to go up to somebody and go, "Hey, do you have security on detail because this guy's fleecing you? He's back here right now doing whatever else." Those are interesting things that occur to us because we're more in tune with our environment.

And let me, let me go down a couple of things that Brian talked about. First of all, when you don't establish reasonable suspicion before probable cause and you don't test your hypothesis, what you get is a situation last week where the teenager was shot returning the plasma gun. I don't know what this new plasma gun is. I'm assuming it's some sort of paintball gun or, you know, a less than lethal thing that kids play with, like a pellet gun kind of thing.

Yeah.

But he was returning it to the store because it was something faulty with it. His dad literally waiting in the parking lot with a running car, Brian, and he goes in and a security guard shoots him. Okay, well, that, that is where you're so hyper-alert that you go flash-to-bang without any consideration or potential de-escalation in it. Now somebody out there is listening to me and going, "Yeah, the kid did something stupid." Yeah, he did. But learning curve shouldn't have cost him his life. You get what I mean?

So, so there's, you know, the dad is already feeling horrible, the kid had no ill intent. So you can accelerate a situation needlessly. Last week, and I'm not going to go into details for attribution because it's a sore spot with me on this caper, but they had a check on the welfare that turned into an armed entry. Three cops were shot and the suspect was shot. Okay, a check on a welfare turning into that? Something's wrong there. Your curiosity was waning while your probable cause was booting a door, and you think you had all the reason for it.

So I'll give you one more, Brian, and it's directly what you're talking about. You know, I joke about the Ring camera all the time, and folks, the Ring camera is more likely to catch you cheating on your spouse than it is a porch pirate or whatever pirate they call them now. But the funny thing is that Walmart's my favorite place to catch shoplifters. I do it just to keep on edge, sharp while we're traveling. Brian and I have to go in, we grab a couple of things, and I'm always the last person out to the car with my peppers and apples because I'm going aisle to aisle seeing who's fleecing the joint or if I can find the security, that's fun to me. But one of the things that I do check is the security camera footage on people they've arrested, or when they say, "Hey, we're looking for this suspect," because people repeat behaviors, and I like finding them too.

The one thing that I noticed, Brian, that's ubiquitous on the camera footage is the people on the ground are completely aware of the people around them, going to the end cap, peeking around to see if they're being observed, going down to the end, leaving an aisle for a minute to go check something out. But guess what? They're oblivious to minutes in, they forget that there's cameras recording everything! And that's funny to me. So that shows a lapse in curiosity based on the advancement of technology that we don't think about those things. We don't think about the ATM camera and the person that has got a camera to protect their garage and their belongings is also filming you sneaking up and doing the homicide.

No, and that's a, it's another example of kind of when you're in that moment, you know, um, you're, you're, you're sort of, you know, you're in, you know, the fight-or-flight, but you're kind of going primal. And so you only go with what you know and what you can see. And humans are very, you know, vision-focused, and that's how we process a lot of information. And you're not used to ever having to look up for a predator or, or prey. I mean, just, you're just, you're looking for the person that may tackle you.

Exactly.

And so that's the funny part is you, that's why you miss those things. Um, you know, it's, it's that's a, that's a, that's a great example of all those behaviors. And that's another thing that what's interesting is, is one of those things we do is like, all right, next time you're at a mall or a big location that has security, try to find the security guards. Find the, find the plainclothes security folks. What would that look like? What that, well, it's not unlike finding the, the criminal in a sense too, it's because they're looking around, just looking at different things for different purposes. But, but that, that's the whole thing. Every, and it's actually easier now today with, because so many people are just glued to their phones. And we're down and in. There's so much competing for our attention. It's actually, you know, the, the whole cell phone thing is and, and smartphones have made it easier to spot people because most people are down and in. And so it's, it's, it's, it's one of those things. It's again, it's a, it's hard to give a list of things that we find interesting. It always depends on the environment and, and, and the context and, and your own past experiences. Um, but, you know, there's, there's that sort of caution in there of not letting our, our curiosity, you know, what was it, "Curiosity killed the cat," right?

But maybe that's, maybe that's what happened. I know enough about that. That's what you should call the episode, but I know too much about that.

No, but you're spot on, but, but go ahead, please.

No, let me...

Yeah, just, just finish, finish that, that, that thought is that, the, you know, if you, if you let that curiosity run wild, then it has those negative consequences. And that's why we have to go, all right, you saw something, either continue your observation or let it go and continue on and remember it. And people like, well, not everything has to be explained. Some things are just odd and out of place, and you have to be okay, but you have to be okay with not knowing the full story.

Curious can go to interesting and never go any further, and that's... do you get what I'm trying to say? Because it can go either way, but it, but the, and the beauty of that is, is that it's, you're, you're, you're constantly doing it. So there's always something to be interested in. There's always something out there. And if you cultivate that, like, you, you, you'll just be constantly doing it. And that's how we develop that operating system running in the background.

And I love talking about topics like this because this is something anyone can do. You don't have to learn our entire lexicon and go to our course. Now, if you want to testify and you want to get really good at it, and you want to be able to make great observations and very, very complex situations, well, yeah, you're going to want a leg to stand on and understand the science behind it. But just, everything, the examples that we gave are things you see in everyday life.

It's like, I do even with the Insurgent (his daughter) when she comes home from school, and she doesn't immediately go grab a snack and something to eat, instead comes up to me. Well, that's interesting to me because that's not... she's hungry at the end of the day. She's got something on her mind, whether it's good or bad or something, but it's enough for her to come contact me. Like, or she's got something on her stomach and she found a couple of bucks and she had a burrito on the way home, whatever it is. That's me.

Ice cream at the ice cream truck! Exactly. So, so, but, but the idea is that curiosity is what starts each one of these paths, and it doesn't mean that you have to go the whole way to probable cause. It doesn't mean that you have to complete a detailed explanation. So, back to your point that you just made, and again, reinforcing it: so find the most dangerous place at your local Walmart, everybody out there. You've got a Walmart, it's not going to be a very far drive, so go in, buy yourself a cup of coffee, and what I want you to do is go back out and look at the wall that you're about to walk into through the opening doors and see how many cameras. Count them! Seven, eight cameras on the parking lot. What does that tell you about the parking lot? Now, if there's 15 cameras, or if there's two, that should tell you something too. And I shouldn't have to walk you by your hand to understand what the number of cameras increased in that location would mean.

Then walk just inside of those doors and take a look at the cashier counter, the exit doors, how many cameras do you see there? Now, go over by a bicycle or by kids' toys or by dog food. I'll venture to guess you're not going to see a lot of cameras, but go over by tobacco or cigarettes or medical supplies, and you're going to increase that. So if you're trying to determine opportunity or the likelihood of a threat, Brian, you can use those indicators in your environment if you're even mildly curious.

And "curiosity killed the cat," the funny thing about that is it's been around forever. So not only can you go all the way back to the ancient Greeks who revered cats and then mummified everything else. But earliest part of literature, the 1598, there was a play by Ben Jonson where they talked about it, and the cat meant the idea of saying that term meant care, not "curiosity killed it," but "caused care in the cat," which meant sorrow or worry. The cat was worried about what it saw. It saw things that not everybody saw. And later that same year in 1599, Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing takes that same thing and uses it now as "curiosity killing the cat." That cat went a little too far, went into that environment where it shouldn't have been. And the great thing is, is that while it, you know, meant now being overly inquisitive, that's not how it started. It adapted and modified with the times. So why do we talk about feral cats? Because them feral cats get everywhere! And if I can find a feral cat, I can find a shoplifter. If I can find a feral cat, I can find a gun on a suspect. Using an alley rather than walking down the Main Street. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about curiosity leading me into places I don't normally want to go or wouldn't normally.

So then if when I find these, find these things interesting, then when does it, you know, when does it rise to the next level, or when does it continue down that funnel? I guess, like, how, how do I determine, um, whether or not it's anomalous? And, you know, an anomaly just being something, you're right, anomalous, something that's there. Yeah, well, something that's there that doesn't belong or something that's missing. And and so, and and an anomaly isn't a list of things, again, it's, it's anomalous to that specific situation at that given time, right? The four kids in the car, you know, at that time in the morning was anomalous from what you typically see at that intersection on that day, at that time, typically, right?

So, but when does it, when, like, how do I get from that to that next level that we're talking about? Because a lot, again, like, listening, they don't care about, you know, reasonable suspicion or probable cause, even though it's a great, you know, it's a great term to use. Um, and it's a great way to look at it because you're, you're developing artifacts and evidence, you're developing your, your, your, um, sort of your decision-making as you go. But what, how do I know when this is an anomalous? How do I know? Like, we gave all these examples that went from interesting to anomalous. Like, so, so, and the way I would look at it before, you know, you answer is sort of like, okay, well, what, what's the relevance of this sort of observation? What does it mean in this given context? And then you can kind of determine whether that's anomalous or not from there. Does that sort of make sense?

No, no, it makes absolute sense. So people ask me all the time, "Why are there six domains?" And I said, "Because five wasn't enough, and seven was too many." And then they laugh for a minute, and they go, "No, why are there six domains?" Because when I'm walking through an environment, I can only remember a certain number of things. And because they overflow into each other, six is plenty of lenses with which to be curious and change that level from curious to interesting. Now I use incongruence as my guide, as a filter for those fewer things that I'm looking at, and I look for anomalous, context-dependent anomalous. And now what that does is that dumps me a much smaller group of things to look at.

Can you kind of explain what you mean by that, that sort of context-dependent anomalous? Because again, I don't want, I don't want to overcomplicate it for people, but also want to know that that it, that it is, when you're using what we're doing is we're doing comparisons, we're using comparative lines. It's, it's this is relevant for this reason, so I have to have two things. I can't just have the thing that I'm looking at, I have to have a comparison for it, right? Because that's how your brain processes information anyway. Like, everything is a comparison to some known in your life that's...

You need to come to a class so we can fill in all those other things, or buy the book, right?

What, what is the, what is the known here compared to sort of that unknown? And that's how I do it. Like, and I think for a lot of folks, it's they want to know more, or they want to, um, you know, this is where you fall into those sort of fundamental attribution errors and you get into this, "Oh yeah, now look at the shirt that they're wearing. They're likely doing this, and they probably came from this house." And this is where all the, the astrologers come in and go, "Yeah, and they likely drive this type of vehicle because they were..." It's like, no, you can't determine any of that. Just go off of the situation right now. So I think a lot of people get kind of confused in, in, in that. And so what do you mean when it's like, this, this context-dependent anomaly?

It's really funny. Behavior profilers that are all over the news and the media and write the books are 100% on their predictions when the person's already in custody and the police finished the trial. So if you're watching me or if you're not, if you're watching me just watch what I do with my hands. If you're not, pick up two pens, pencils, beer cans, whatever the hell you're holding right now. Hold one farther away from you than the other. Now, line up the one that's closer to your face so you can see the other pen. I'm holding a blue and a red pen or item. Okay, that's what Brian is talking about. The known is the one in your right hand closest to you. The unknown is the left. Well, that's not enough. What you now have to do is you now have to put that against a baseline, an environment, a context. So in a library, I'm not likely to see a person playing the tuba. So that would be interesting to me. I would have to find out, is it, you know, Tuba Appreciation Day at the local library? If I'm watching an Elton John concert and the people that are standing directly in front of me are using marionettes to act out each part of the song, that's something I've never seen in my life. So that's interesting to me. So I would say, "Hey, you dope-smoking marionette freaks, what are we doing?" And I apologize my language, give me whatever you're on, I got the contact buzz. But the idea, and I apologize about the language because sometimes it feels pedantic talking about this, but the idea is that what we're doing is we're making a series of comparisons, and the comparisons are going to drive my interest level up or down. And then anomalies are going to say, "I have to go further." So stop just looking for dope or guns. Look for incongruent behavior. And if I have incongruence plus anomalous behavior in an area, then I know that I'm on to something.

So, have you ever watched the person in a store? So pick a store, Walmart's a good one. A City Market or a grocery store is a good one. Airports, a good one. And what you do is try to determine which people, just today while you're there, are overwhelmed. Which people have had enough? Which are ready to blow? Whose cups are full? And prove it! The two favorite words in English language: "Prove it to me." They're sweating, they're sitting down, they're on the phone, they're shaking their head. People are offering them food or drink and they're saying no to it. They're not sitting in the chair, they're literally sitting on the floor. You get what I'm trying to say? The feet are both active and tapping, whatever those things are.

Now, what about somebody lost? You ever see a little kid in the store that goes over to check something out and turns around and Mom's not there or Dad's not there anymore? And now they're looking and the search gets more and more frantic. Well, those are easy ones because what I can do is I can say, "Are they looking for something or are they looking for someone?" Did Mom or Dad send them for the cat food and they're just checking the aisles? Are they starting to panic because they haven't seen that Mom and Dad with the stroller? And now they're, they're... So, Brian, what happens is curiosity develops in me an interest, and that interest then develops in me what's a likely storyline, or what's the likely outcome of this scenario that is playing out in front of me? And then I can decide to say, "Hey, kid, are you lost?" That's a good way to figure out if somebody's lost. "Hey, can I help you?" when somebody's overwhelmed. And no matter what, my just being a good human... see, this is a great thing: is curiosity is like lifting weights but for your brain. It's a way to do what you're already naturally designed to do, to sense fear and sense, make your environment so you don't get into shitty situations.

So now let's say that you get to the point where you go, "Wow, this behavior is very interesting and I'm seeing anomalies based on the environment, the context which I'm in." And you know what? "I'm going to tell somebody!" And who do you tell? Well, it might be the front desk clerk at the hotel because the checking, you noticed something suspicious in a parking lot. Or Brian, it might be 911 on your phone and hovering that finger precariously over that last one. And what's that? Well, only you'll know. Look, we can teach you when to do something. It's always best to call 911 before you need it. I'll repeat that, okay? Calling 911 and saying, "Hey, this is probably nothing, okay, but I'm seeing this go on," is that thing where now you can go back to and go, "I was wrong!" But guess what? "I was wrong three times, and the one time I was right saved a bunch of lives." You're not trying to put somebody in a trick bag, Brian. We're not trying to smirch somebody's integrity. What we're trying to say is your behavior has risen to a point where it's interesting to me among thousands of people I see all day long, and it never happens.

And the, and the decision you make is obviously dependent on what your role is in the situation and who you are and what, what you're there to, like, you know, it, and that, that's what you're responsible for. That's, that's very different. We, we can't, we can't get into that. No one can make that, that, you know, decision, you know, unless you are the person there in the environment. You, you know that. You can't, can't come up with, "Oh, here's what to do," unless...

We could say, "Hey, it should be legal," we should say, "It should be ethical." Yes, we could say that morality should be your guide, but we certainly can't say in which instance you should do more or less. Of course.

And no one can. That's the, that's the complexity, hard part. But that, and everyone wants that, "Well, what do I do?" Well, you can only say that in, in so many specific situations. Like, I, I can teach my kids, "Okay, during these situations, you're going to call 911 immediately. You're going to hit the panic button on the alarm at the house," like, "when this, these things occur." But there's that gray area where they don't know. So I have to teach them, "Well, well, when..." Like, we had to get a bunch of things like inspected here at the house for some of the stuff. And like, you know, where they come out with like a test to see if you have, you know, gas lines or wherever on the, on the property before you dig anything, you know, that kind of stuff, right? And so it's like, "Well, you know, when someone's at our house on our property taking photos of the house, you should probably come tell one of us." You know what I mean?

Exactly. That's interesting! That's interesting.

So like, you know, the Insurgent (his daughter) got all scared and locked the doors and thought it was weird. But like, didn't say anything. And I was like, "Hey, okay, like when you know these things happen, like, but you can't go through an entire list." You know? So, so it's, I look at it as, what would you teach your kid to do in that situation? And you teach them to, "Well, you know, yeah, get, get an adult, ask someone else, go, go ask for help." So how is that different than most of the situations you're going to run into in life and any of these? And you can ask a bystander, you know what I mean? Like, you're pumping gas and you see something odd going on, the person right on the other side of the pump of you, you can, you can enlist the aid of others and say, "Hey, this looks a little odd to me. What do you think?" You know?

And and that's, that's the whole thing is, is it doesn't have to be, everyone wants the simple answer. And I, I see so much of that out there. It's like, "Well, you know, that, that's, that's when you're going to come in." And I'd rather be, you get the stupid sayings, "I'd rather be judged by 12 and carried by six." It's like, okay, the only people that have ever said that are the ones that are in a holding cell, ready to go before the judge.

I know. It's like, it's a very, it's a very simple way to look at the world. Like, I see that on your bumper, I'm not parking near you by the way. You know what I'm saying? A few more, a few more head injuries, and I'll be right there with that one. But, um, one thing I love about you is that you play against role and you're actually a very good parent. So Father's Day just means that you're a sperm donor, right? But being a real father is a much more standard, you know, that I, I, I think highly of you as a dad. I think highly of Sean Clemens as a dad, Nico, who just had a baby with Bailey, I know he's going to be a good dad. Why? Because the things that we instilled in them when they were young. Shelley and I would be walking around in any situation that we were with the kids, and we'd say, "Always be looking for cover." And then we'd show them what cover looked like. People laughed at us in the stores and didn't understand what was going on. "Always be looking for an exit." And we'd show them what an exit looked like. We'd be in a store and we'd walk through those pushy doors and show, "There's an exit that's back there." And then somebody would come up and go, "You can't be back here." Yeah, thank you. And we'd go, you know, but we would show them how to find that exit. And then always be considering de-escalation, the ABCD. We still use that today in class, Brian. Look, this is a situation that I don't think is tenable right now, so I'm going to increase my chances of survivability to be nice, de-escalate the situation, and get the hell out of Dodge, and then consider doing something else. Those are so reasonable and they're the flip side to curiosity. With curiosity means that somebody, a real good criminal or real good terrorist is going to notice you in the crowd being more curious than somebody else that raises the likelihood of them targeting you and going, "Holy crap!"

So, right. So, so these go both ways. They're less likely to, to actually, yeah, that's, that's the thing is that, you know, those criminals are looking for that low-hanging fruit or something like that, and, and they're going to go with simple. And you just, you know, it's, it's the, the example of putting this sign on your lawn saying, "This property protected by whatever," you, you sort of, whether or not you have an alarm system, you get rid of that, the bottom, you know, the bottom dwellers, you get rid of the, the people that, well, "That house doesn't have one, so I'm going to go there." Now if someone really still wants to target you, are they going to? Well, of course, but that's with any situation.

A different level of intent too.

Yeah, exactly. But it's, and, and it's so, so it's, it's like you're, you're playing to the numbers on this. Like, how do I keep that lowest group away? And yeah, when you're, when you're looking around and you, you're seeing these things, like, people pick up on that and they're like, "All right, well, I'm not going near that guy because he's all, he's all..."

Victim or opponent, right, Brian? I mean, and that's, and it also tells you if someone still is coming up to you and they notice that you're doing that, well, that's a different opponent that you have right there that's raised up. And, and now we're at that reasonable suspicion, probable cause. So out in the driveway, I've got a metallic sign between the two doors, and nobody ever comes up. You know, sometimes UPS or a FedEx, but we don't get many visitors for a good reason. And right on it, it says, "Forget the dog, beware of the wife!" And it shows a picture of Shelley, it scares the hell out of me, you know. And one day one of the UPS drivers goes, "Hey, is that true?" And I go, "Oh yeah, you know, that, you don't want to mess, nobody messes with Shelley." And as a matter of fact, Shelley is on the fast call, the call list, to whenever anything goes crazy, people are always calling Shelley, "I'm seeing this, what should I do?" And I find that hilarious because who do they want to go to? They want to go to the rock. They want to go to the person. When you were talking to those two coppers, Brian, the husband-wife down in Florida, their blood pressure never raised above a level when they said, "We were interested in this." And that we're not talking about being hyper-alert here, Brian. We're not talking about burning a lot of calories, right?

Yeah, Shelley's also, Shelley will kill you while she's still drinking her, her coffee and never even, without spilling the latte, she's just...

But the idea is so funny because I, I, I love it, and it was never meant as an insult, and you can see people go, "That's degrading your wife!" You have more like, you have more elk and wild cats showing up at your house than you have people.

Fox yesterday, which drove Juneau nuts.

Yeah, we don't have a lot of people up here, but I want them to know too, you know. And, and the idea with the curiosity is being mildly curious is so easy. It's such a low-hanging fruit, a low caloric intervention that why don't you try it? And you know what? If you bought that funnel and you mark it up, or if you got it on a yellow pad, send us a photo so we can take a look and and see that you're doing it right. And, and, you know what, post that photo on your fridge, and over the next couple of days you won't have to anymore because you'll assimilate that information. You'll be doing it as part of your daily routine.

Yeah, that's, uh, that's a good one. It was The Home Depot parking lot yesterday for me. I was like, "What are these people creeping around between cars?" And they were, they were selling, they had their little, uh, um, uh, little hand truck with, uh, crates of, uh, strawberries on there that they were selling. So you can...

Didn't mean it was illegal, meant it was interesting.

Right. Yeah, well, and then they were, they were hiding out because it was still sunny and hot. It was late afternoon, so they're hitting the shade of their pickup truck and then they go around.

Well, exactly. And they had...

It was, it was the same thing if you were going to go up and rob someone in the parking lot, was the same exact behavior. But they were just trying to sell strawberries. So I can...

And rarely people carry strawberries and guns at the same time, I'm just saying.

I, I got 50 pounds of play sand and, uh, and, and a crate of strawberries yesterday.

Phenomenal, phenomenal deal. I love that. I get to do that here. But, uh, yeah, not so much here, by the way. Still 35 to 40 degrees every morning, but it ends at 90. So I've got that going for me.

So, all right, so we, we, we covered a lot. And, you know, you started, I just kind of reiterate the, the, the funnel concept. You know, you started that big end of the funnel and then you work your way down. And, and some things will go all the way down there and go, "Yep, here, here's where you are." But most things kind of just never get below that top layer of the funnel.

They don't plug it up. Think about a big water balloon, right? They'll plug it up near the curious or the interesting and won't go down any farther. But think of something like a BB or a pellet or a marble. They'll go through those first layers and continue all the way to the narrow end. And if you have a graduated cylinder, it's the same thing. At the top, the lowest level, the lowest caloric intervention, is always curiosity. And why not start there? It's like our admonition about the parking lot. Dudes, if you want to increase your survivability, pay more attention. Park, go, go hang out in those big parking lots, those Home Depots, Walmarts, all that stuff. You, you'll see more in a day than than you've had like your whole life. It's, it's, it's a great place to do it.

All right, well, we covered a lot, and, and, you know, hopefully, hopefully we cultivated some curiosity with this episode and got people, got people thinking. But, uh, you know, we'd love to hear back from everyone. You can always reach out to us at, you know, thehumanbehaviorpodcast@gmail.com. And then, obviously, we have a lot more on the Patreon side. And, and those folks will, we'll be happy to answer your questions. And we're going to do some of the, the webinars where we can deep dive sort of some of the concepts and you get some more content on there so you can go use some of the lenses that we talk about in class. Um, we're trying to chunk that up and, and in very digestible ways that, that are kind of practical that people can use. Um, so you can find all that stuff on the Patreon site. So, I don't know, any, any other last words there, Greg?

Very briefly, for the love of God, get yourself a textbook, it's all in there. Second thing is, Brad Pitt in Seven, "What's in the box?" That's what I think of when I think of Schrödinger, and this, this entire cat analogy throughout this has been Schrödinger for me. So...

Okay, well, there we go. Well, thanks everyone for tuning in.

Yeah, don't, don't forget to open the box and look inside. No, don't forget that that training changes behavior.