Left Of Greg 089 Your Daily Routine Two Sides of the Same Coin

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This is CNN.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. All right, I think we are live now. All right, Greg, we'll go ahead and get started today. It's been, we took kind of a week off there. Had a lot going on, I had some stuff going on that I was dealing with and we'll jump into that on another podcast, hopefully. But we're kind of back at it again after this long Labor Day weekend with a kind of unplanned trip right at the beginning.

So today, we are going to be discussing in particular, your kind of your daily routine. So how routines — and we always talk about setting patterns — but look at it from two sides of the same coin, because some of the same things that we do in terms of setting patterns and developing a routine, which allows us to get a lot more done and maybe keep going to the gym every day, that same process can actually be very, very detrimental. So it's kind of our brain deciding, you know, do we conserve energy and stay in this routine versus kind of getting outside of that, learning to adapt, and learning to change, right? Because you actually need both.

So it's tough because we have to set patterns, we have to have a daily routine in order to accomplish more. But man, does that really work against us sometimes. It works against us in a lot of ways when we talk about adaptation and change blindness and things that we no longer see or hear or notice because we're stuck in that loop of that routine. So we need to do it, yet we need to push outside that routine at the same time. So that's kind of, I guess, framing what we're going to talk about today. Did you want to add anything to that before we get into some of these?

I'm excited by that, and I think that's a great prospect. So, if I can give our audience something to cogitate on, the idea is this: if they've ever seen the old original Blob horror film with Steve McQueen—you know, I'm a fan of Steve McQueen. And Aneta Corsaut, who went on to be in The Andy Griffith Show, by the way, as Andy's love interest for many years.

So what happened is, as the blob is learning its environment, it pushes out and it's like gelatin, it's like Jell-O. It wasn't a really scary thing. But it pushes out and it kind of rolls around in its environment. And they hide in a refrigerated area of a restaurant, and the blob actually comes under the door, conforms to the door, and pushes in. But when it hits the cold, it recedes in terror and moves back off in a different direction.

There's a need in our brain to fashion our environment to suit us so we don't have to continue to burn calories. But that part, going out and checking out our environment, burning those calories, is essential for our growth. So we're constantly in this back-and-forth pull. And so if our listeners or readers or watchers—I guess lip readers—if they want, or like me, that closed caption at the bottom—your life would like to be in homeostasis because it's safer, and we don't burn a lot of calories, and all we do is eat and crap.

But the other thing is like a dreamcatcher. And you've seen those Native ornamental [pieces]. Yeah, and I've seen the one you have tattooed on your lower back. You see that right by the unicorn. And the idea is that very important test came back. The idea is, though, if we take a look at that dreamcatcher, Brian, every time that we reach a nexus in our life, there's different ways it can branch off, right? So the one side of the coin says, "Yeah, the house is a lot better than," you know, "there's a pool in the pond. I'd rather stay in the pool." Then the other part of that says, "Listen, if I don't venture out, how am I going to learn? How am I going to adapt to this environment? How am I going to grow?" So I think that's what we want to talk about today.

And the funny thing is, you brought up an interesting thing about going to the gym. And we both just read an article about going to the gym, Brian. So would you like to share that or should I?

No, go ahead and bring up the gym article, I, uh, for the guy who met an unfortunate or early demise, I guess.

Well, you don't think all the time. And I can't remember if that was the 2010 or 2015 doing the research on motorcycle clubs (MC), but this happened to be the Outlaws—nothing against them, I'm just reciting information. But the Outlaws boss, who every day went to the gym, so good on him, do you get what I'm trying to say? He had time away from the meth and the murders and the kidnapping to actually ride to the gym.

And the funny thing was that even the article author and the other journalists that contributed said that he always parked in the same spot, and he parked illegally. So I used to do that with my motorcycle, I used to park in the bicycle parking area. Yeah, technically, you know, much closer to business, and I thought a bike. At the same time, he went to his available gym, he parked in the same spot, and he said, "Listen, he's going to have his head up his ass when he comes back to get on his motorcycle in this illegal spot." And certainly he did. He stepped out of the shadows, and he shot the guy.

What does that tell you? Your routines define you. So if somebody wants to profile you, all they have to do, Brian, is surveil you for a short period of time, and they'll come up with what's your most likely pattern. That's where the pattern comes in. Human behavior pattern recognition comes from us saying, "Creatures of habit." Right?

So that goes into when we all fall into a routine, like I kind of said at the beginning, which is good and bad, right? We need it to have both of these. Like you just said, you know, the cave—I always go back to the cavemen because that's who we all still are. We haven't quite caught up to the technology that we use yet. But, you know, it's a comfortable and safe environment inside there, and I don't have to leave. Nothing's going to—it's hard for something to come in here and get me. But at the same time, in order for my survival, in order to continue to adapt and learn and change, I have to go outside.

And everyone falls, I guess, at a different point on the spectrum. But the idea is, you know, there's people who only just want to wander out and go outside the cave, and there's people who only want to stay inside the cave and not do anything. But realistically, you kind of have to do both, and you have to realize that they're both because you brought up the story of the Outlaws motorcycle gang leader, I guess, or one of their leaders, who was, you know, he was targeted through his routine, right? That's normal. We see for any targeting purposes, whether that's like military, law enforcement, or someone who wants to hurt you or do you harm, all they have to do is figure out what you do because we all set those patterns. It's impossible for us to constantly change every single thing that we do every single day. It will eventually fall into some sort of pattern because our brain has to make order out of chaos, and that's burning way too many calories doing that, right?

So this is how we fall into, so I want everyone to kind of just understand that you know, you want a good understanding of both sides and where and how you can use them, right? Where it can—where it'll be a bad thing to fall into routine, but also know how it can be a good thing to fall into routine. Does that kind of make sense?

Spot on, Brian. And here's the thing, let's stick with that two sides of the coin. So, if you study physics, you'll understand the conservation of energy. And conservation of energy is what allows springs to work and incline planes and screws. Okay? It's no different. You remember we had our arguments early on, and Combat Hunter, sometimes Marie would come up and say, "Yeah, but that's a different concept. That's math or physics." It doesn't matter, that's the way the world goes. So conservation of energy is absolutely essential.

But then if we take a look at sociological or psychological or even physiological, Brian, myelin in the brain is what creates synapses and lubricates the connections, right? So we can have a thought and make a motion, right? So what happens is cortisol builds up when the anxiety of going outside and searching our environment comes up as a topic, and now myelin is inhibited, and therefore we don't have critical thinking. So you see how dangerous that balance is? So I actually talked myself into not working out, not eating well, not getting out of the cave, and that's dangerous too. So we have to balance routine but not following a pattern. Does that make sense? With exploration but not doing it to get ourselves killed.

Look, babies do it all the time, and there's even a medical term called "failure to thrive" baby. So you see the one baby that's rolling around till it gets on its belly, then it's crawling around and it looks like a little alien creature because they aren't sure which parts go with which, right? And you have the other one that just kind of lays there and stares at the sun. And the balance is that this big one...

(Interjecting) Exactly!

...are you very young? That's why Brian's got such a good tan now, folks. He built it up those first nine years when he was in first grade. But the idea, though, Brian, think about it: if you don't, you know, "publish or perish," "innovate or stagnate"—where do those lines come from? They come from this: if you stay in that cave, you'll be completely safe, but guess what? You'll die, and nobody will ever know. They'll never be the wiser.

No. And that's good. And this goes into everything that we do. You know, a lot of people like posting, right? So take social media, for example. Take posting of people doing something stupid or seems obvious from our perspective watching it. I know, especially when it happens with like—or people bash on someone like you watch like law enforcement videos or they're like, "Oh, look at this guy!" It's like, "Hey, man, that was his pattern. That was his routine. That was something that was; so it was most likely some sort of training scar or some loop that was closed in the wrong direction, right?" It didn't lead to the right response at that given time.

And it's important to kind of understand that because we give a ton of examples because that goes into not just our trained or programmed responses, but actually, like you just brought up, our critical thinking ability and are dependent on, or our own biases kind of overtaking. You brought up cortisol and dopamine, the electrochemical neurotransmitters that get involved in that where you see very, very highly experienced people like those explorers you talk about who definitely go outside the cave, who have a ton of experience in it, know when to stop, when to go home, when to, "Hey, let's rest." But certain situations they don't.

I know the one we sent, and there's been books written about all this stuff, but the one of the articles you talked about was the same thing. We see this all the time with climbers, right? People climbing a mountain or a mountain face, or even right now, I see it a lot—there's campers, people out camping in California and probably Colorado as well, but people in California who are getting evacuated because of all these fires. Okay, one, it's fire season. Two, these fires have been going on for quite a while. So at what point...? But you, so I'm sitting there, "How are they evacuating so many campers?" And you know, you look at them, you see them on the news, you go, "Hey, I can tell that by the way that person's dressed in their vehicle and all that stuff, they have that this isn't likely their first time camping." Meaning they didn't—they didn't just decide as a family to go out that weekend and had no training and no experience and all of a sudden, "Oh, we didn't realize the fire would get to us and now we're cut off from our vehicle, need to be evacuated." These people were—that's what they do, that's their life. They live to go outside camping. So how is it that they can then also, you know, fall into that trap and, you know, basically not heed any of their own internal warnings?

Okay, we are live now, Greg. So we are going to pick up where we left off the other day when we had some technical difficulties. But we were talking about our routines and how routines are a good thing and a bad thing, how we kind of overextend our boundaries sometimes or go beyond what our capabilities are sometimes just because we're stuck in that routine. So, do you want to start it off and pick it up kind of where we left?

Brian had a very great question. I want to tune back into the question. The question was California wildfires, it's wildfire season. A lot of people were camping, and many of the people getting evacuated were clearly campers. They had the gear, they had the equipment, they were experienced hikers and backpackers. How does that happen?

Well, I would say this, Brian, I would say to our listeners, to our viewers, that we talk about being risk averse. The more training and experience we have, or the less training and experience we have, are almost equal. They're almost homeostasis, and they're two sides of the same coin. So this is what happens. You've heard of "beginner's luck." Well, those terms aren't coined just out of the blue. Beginner's luck: some idiot wandered into the woods, never thinking it was going to be a fire, didn't have any water, anything else. Flash fire goes over him, everything, he walks out without eyebrows, but he's safe.

Well, you also get those experienced folks that go in there, and what happens is the more experience they have, the less risk averse they are. I'll give you a perfect example. As you remember, a couple of years ago, there was that horrible series of videos that was on about a guy called "Grizzly Man." He was going to schools, he spent his summers or winters, or whatever it was, in Alaska, playing with grizzly bears, did a bunch of video footage, came back, and then sooner or later, he got mauled and eaten. And so did his girlfriend while they videotaped themselves.

(Interjecting) Tim Treadwell.

Well, okay, so what Treadwell's downfall was—and don't speak ill of the dead, because I'll be haunted anyway—but what his downfall is, is the same downfall of rafters, of those K2 mountain climbers you were talking about that are linked together, that fall together, the selfie people that fall over the edge. In Treadwell's case, he anthropomorphized a grizzly bear. So he looked at that grizzly bear and he said, "Okay, I survived the first encounter." Then he said, "Hey, I'm setting a pattern of surviving these encounters, a routine." So routinely he saw these animals, got closer and closer to him, and they were fine. But you know that animal's an animal, and it's a flipping grizzly bear! And one day the animal decided that it would become an animal, and it ate his face while he was filming.

Those things happen. Why do you think one of the things in the academy, Brian, when I'm teaching police officers, is I got to fight them from typing up their affidavit for a warrant or their log sheet and saying, "On Tuesday the 27th, while on routine patrol..." There's nothing routine about it! There's no such thing as a routine traffic stop. So that's how I would answer the question that you pose about the wildfires, about the people rafting or hiking. It gets more dangerous, but because it's incremental, Brian, they think they're prepared for it. In their heart, in their mind, they go, "We've trained for exactly this. Let's push the envelope!"

Right. So that's a good point about how, you know, both ends of the spectrum can kind of fall into the same trap, right? If I don't know anything, I can get myself in over my head. And if I know so much that I can also get myself in over my head. Great example with the bear. You know, over time, the more times I get away with it, the more times I get away with it. We see this in not just criminal behavior, but just normal behavior. You brought up the beginner's luck comment, it's perfect. It's like, you know, me, the first time I ever went to Vegas, I was, you know, I kept winning at blackjack. I'm like, "This is the greatest thing ever!" And then I won a good amount of money, and then the next time I went back, I lost everything that I'd won.

But I think that's a, that's a good way to look at it, especially in a very simple understanding way. Okay? Because we always look at, "Well, how does this expert? How is someone who's been the world renowned this? How can this—like how did they fall into it?" And it's actually the better you get at it sometimes, the more likely you are to fall into that trap, or the worse you are at something. So it's almost like that middle ground where you're still questioning things, where you're still questioning your ability and your capabilities. You have a little bit of a, almost like a safety net in there, a buffer, something that's going.

So how do I then, you know, what do I do to maintain that, right?

How do I—Let me give you an example of what you just said, and that was a brilliant way to tie all that together in one ball of yarn. So, this morning at 5:30, power goes out at Rogue Manor West again. And folks, you're wondering about what happened on the part one of this broadcast. The first 19 minutes everything was going good and the power went out again. We had a severe storm that's lasted now 70-72 hours with no signs of abating. Huge winds, a lot of snowfall, everything else, and the power goes out. So we're ready for that, and we have pioneer kits in the vehicles to be ready for that. We have extra water. We don't have a diesel generator, we got firewood inside the house. You got the firewood in the house, you had the fire going just for that contingency.

But Shelly and I are so on routine, Brian, that when we woke up this morning, I was about 10 after four and started going around. I was down working out, she's getting ready, she's got all the stuff going. Then boom, all of a sudden, all the power is out. Well, you got to remember, we're a long way from town, and so it's still pitch dark outside. So now it's, "Okay, break out the lantern and the candles, start a fire in the fireplace." We were doing the routine, so the electronic garage door doesn't open so Shelly can't drive her vehicle to work. So I'm driving her to work, you know, all these things start going on.

Well, we started picking at each other and picking at each other, and I'm going, "Hey, why are we having this argument?" The argument was because I was already outside warming up the truck, ready to go at her 6:30, you know, no later than time. And she's going, "What if we wait five more minutes and see if the power comes on?" And I go, "Damn woman! Vile woman! No, we're not going to wait, we're going to follow that routine!" And as it happened, at seven o'clock, the power comes on. And all those efforts I did seemed like wasted energy, right? I could not use my critical thinking in that routine to think, "Hey, maybe the power is going to come out." Why? Because it's such a random thing. Well, many things that kill us, Brian, are completely random events that we didn't plan for, or we over-planned for.

No, I think that's a good point, you know, and a great example, kind of right in the middle of these moments that occur. Because, you know, they are—when you do have a planning process, and you have them fully in place, and then the situation comes up, you automatically default, "All right, well, I got a plan for that," right? Which makes things easier. So that goes into the routine. So the balancing act—and I like how we call it the two—everything has two sides of the coin. So the routine and the patterns of behavior that we always discuss, and that's what we do is, you know, it's a really, really good thing and it's also a really, really bad thing. And it kind of exactly kind of brings it back to, it's almost, "How do I stay in that middle area," right?

You know, and that's with everything. So even when you say, you know, it's like a little bit of education is a dangerous thing. What they say is, all of a sudden you think you're an expert at a topic that you just learned about. You got the, you went through the eight-hour course and now you're an instructor in something, right? And then it's dangerous because, one, it's just natural human behavior, like we want to go, "Hey, cool! I learned this new skill set or I learned this new piece of information that not a lot of people know about or maybe haven't heard about yet. And I will feel compelled to tell everyone about it, or I want to share that with as many people as, you know, to show that, 'Hey, look at what I know!'" And this isn't a negative thing, that this goes back to a lot of stuff that gets shared on social media and different stuff. And, "Hey, did you hear about this? Did you hear that this happened?" Right? And now we want to become that expert.

But that little bit actually can be a dangerous thing because all you maybe did was scratch the surface of a very, very complex, nuanced topic, and you need to deep dive that further. And I think that's when it comes down to, then you get people that are so such an expert in their area or in their field, and that then becomes almost that, that confirmation bias sets in. All of our different biases, the cognitive dissonance sets in, we just go, "Hey, this is all I see the world through now is just this one thing." And we kind of forget that, "Well, wait a minute, there's all this other stuff out here." So how do we—again, it kind of goes back to the, "How do I manage that?" Right? If all these patterns are there to help me survive, right? If I naturally want to set a pattern, then how do I not fall into creating too much of a pattern where now it's actually detrimental to me?

Well, I think I have what we could do with the audience as a limited objective experiment. But I would have you indulge me for a second, Brian. What happens when Marines or soldiers come out of combat and they've been very kinetic—(sarcastically) sorry, Dale Dye—they've been very kinetic in combat, and they buy a motorcycle.

Yeah, just—yeah, no, exactly, that's exactly what I thought of when you gave your last example of that. All right, I buy a street bike or someone buys one, which is why I, when I did that same exact thing that everyone else does, I stuck to the Harley because you can only push it so far. Right? But, no, you guys will come out, you buy that street bike, that racing bike, and you know, if you again, you don't get any training on it, you just get on it and it's just someone shows you how to ride, or you know, and everyone thinks they're an expert at everything, right?

And so what happens is, yeah, you start riding that thing, you hit a few turns, you're getting a little bit more comfortable, you're building up your confidence. And all of a sudden, you come into a turn, and you think, "Oh, crap, I'm going way too fast!" And you lean hard, you lean hard, but you actually ride it out and make it through. So if that was at 40 miles an hour, well, now that's your threshold now. "Oh, I know I can do that! Hey, I just got all that dopamine, I get the adrenaline, all that stuff." So now the next time I go through that turn, well, I'm going to push it a little bit more. And then if I make it through, I'm going to push it a little bit more. And if I make it through, I'm going to push a little bit more. But eventually, eventually, you're going to exceed your capabilities or the capabilities of whatever you're riding, right?

So answer the following question: Do you feel that the skill increase is commensurate with the risk that's increasing? And I think you would agree that even though the person is getting incrementally better, that the curve is much different, the learning curve, because you're assuming a lot more risk by going that much, even a mile an hour faster. So...

So, yeah, yeah. So I get you, we're saying that because now you're kind of getting into the skill development. Well, the better I get, technically, the more I can push it. But eventually, you hit that point of you're now pushing it at the same rate—yeah, you're so you're pushing it at the same rate but your abilities aren't increasing at that same rate, right? So now that curve starts to happen, right, where you start to continually increasing, you know, if that line is going up on a 45-degree angle, as you push it, your abilities increase. Eventually you keep pushing it, but your abilities flatten, right? And then, and then you're looking at some sort of dangerous situations occur.

So let me compare it now. Okay, that was a great assessment. Now, you know that I live up in the mountains, and there's mountain passes from the East to the West. And as a matter of fact, that's why it's called the Continental Divide. Water runs either to the West or to the East. And so there's a bunch of passes that are very close to Rogue Manor, I could point them out the window. And what happens is the people that were leading wagon trains from the East Coast, the middle of the country to California, for example, the Gold Rush, okay? What happened is they knew when they got to these certain passes. They weren't unknown. These aren't the first ones, these are now the pioneers, Brian, the ones that are just taking the wagon train through for money. All of a sudden, they get to this zone, and the leaves are off the aspen trees, and there's snow on the ground. They know that at this point that bodes poorly for the progress. They must make a camp, and that's why there's villages and cities there. And you can go up and down the Continental Divide from Mexico all the way to California and see evidence of those tribal encampments and where people had to stay and gear up because they had to wait it out because they knew if they went on, they would die.

Yet, you have the story of the Donner Party where the guys were so experienced, and they've done a lot of times, and they had some inexperienced people and they go, "Yeah, but if we just make that next tree line, if we make it to there, it's all downhill from here, Brian, and we can push it." And that's what goes through your mind of that inexperienced motorcycle person that isn't skill developed, that hasn't gone through the courses, that hasn't attained training. And what they're doing is they're going, "Hey, it's only a couple of miles an hour or more." They don't understand that boom, all of a sudden what's happening is they just skewed the intended results.

So if—and you asked for an answer, and I'll give you a part of one, and then I want you to pile on—Scotty Witt, Andy Reese, John McCaskill, (jokingly) and sorry about that, Johnny—but lack of water, we just came off another Zoom. But these guys talk about being introspective, right? You talk about situation and situational awareness, which is the same thing, they're talking about your personal awareness. So what's the matter with you that while you're on a motorcycle—a Harley was a poor example, let's say you're on a Katana and you've got it wide open, you're in the red zone—you know what you need to do once in a while is give yourself the gift of time and distance and take that scenic overlook and let the bike cool down for a minute and step off the bike and do a quick 360 evaluation: inside to outside, up and down, and go, "Wait a minute, am I processing this well?"

Brian, we've all undergone adversity. We've all got some form of PTSD or another. We all have anxiety about issues. If we step back and we take a look at the panacea of these issues, they don't look so insurmountable. But if we stay in that moment, I think that's where the danger exists. I think staying too close to the flame is when we risk being burned.

Yeah, and there's, man, I mean, there's a lot written about that. And that's always the struggle, right? Of how far outside the cave do I push? Because with more risk comes greater reward, right? But also, more risk means you're more likely to die literally or get yourself into a rescue situation. So I mean, so it's kind of finding that balance. And, you know, the problem is, is one that I always think, you know, the older you are, generally the better you get at calculating that risk because you have those file folders or experiences. So the younger you are, it's actually, especially—I always go back to, you know, military guys or guys in their 20s. When you, you literally almost are bulletproof, or as close to it as you can. I mean, you're in the best shape of your life, you're training all the time, you're doing all this stuff. So your idea of what risk is, is so far past what you actually think it is.

And that's the point of what is an actual calculated risk, because how do I determine where I'm at on that line of being completely unprepared or so experienced that I'm going to not see the threat in front of me or not realize that I'm getting myself into this situation? And you brought up, it's kind of interesting, you went to Michelle Paladini and John McCaskill—they do a lot of the mindfulness stuff because that's introspective. And that is the hardest thing to do is taking a look at yourself in the mirror and going, "Hey, is this really a good idea? Is this really something that I should be getting myself into?" And you know that, and you see it, the bear attack is perfect. There's so much at play there where the guy who works with all those bears and lives with them and all that stuff, and then it's like no one's surprised that he was killed by a bear.

Yeah, no one said anything when he was the show, but everybody showed up and ate popcorn all the way until it ripped Roy's arm off, or whoever the hell—whatever. And they go, "Wow, who'd have expected that? It's a flipping lion! It's a tiger!" And Brian, I think you—you know, and I'm going to mispronounce the hell out of this—it's Key and Peele, right?

Oh, yeah! The guys that we love watching!

I would say if you—their take on human behavior is excellent. They're geniuses, they are doctors, right?

Yeah.

But take them. And I put Scotty Witt in that same band. And the reason I bring that up, Brian, is he's an actor, but what does he do? He peels the onion back to our insecurities, and he shows us at our egotistical best, doesn't he? At our highest level of douchebaggery, when everybody else around us sees the pothole we're about to trip and doesn't tell us. And Brian, that goes back to the ego system. We're walking along, we trip on an uneven sidewalk, and we go, "Have that removed." Then we joke and we look around. If nobody else was around, we would have said, "Motherf*****, gosh!" But because we're being watched, now we have this fragile ego system that we have to build up.

Listen, when you fall into a routine, routine leads to suicide. Routine leads to anxiety. Why? I had a friend, a dear friend, they lost a cat. You're thinking, "Yeah, okay, they lost a cat, it's not a kid. Get a dog, right?" No, no, no, no. In that woman's life, that cat was her child. And she counted on it every day coming home from work or leaving for work, Brian, that establishes a routine. A adult that loses a child, they had that routine. You crave that routine. Why? Because myelin creates axons and dendrites in your brain that each time that that pattern returns, you get, you know, dopamine or you get cortisol or you get good drugs or bad drugs. And we crave those.

Here's one of the things, and we kind of brought it up, actually, I brought up yesterday when we were talking to Dr. Carlos Vasquez—shout out, shout out to him on this one as well, because great show, folks, and we work with him. But, you know, you just brought it up how those routines happen and how we fall into them and being on that loop, right, that pathway and getting that dopamine. And the thing is about it is that, you know, if I think I'm doing the right thing and I'm on that path to doing the right thing, I continually get that dopamine reward, which creates that pattern of behavior, right? All that reinforcement and everything we reinforce about it reinforces it.

But here's the crazy part about that is that it's a very subjective way, meaning it's a very subjective experience. Meaning as long as I think I'm on the right path, I think I'm doing the right thing, I think that it is, I will get that dope regardless. I might be going the absolute wrong direction, I might be doing the wrong thing, it might be horrible for my body. But if I believe it to be true, which is really powerful when it gets into this stuff, because this is how we fall into that. It goes, "No, look, I've done this a hundred times before, you know what I'm doing." Yeah, "All I do is I walk through the—I'm going to do the same process because it's worked every time." And I forget that since it's not as fresh as that first experience, that first time when we're all looking around.

We had a great question come up on a recent webinar that kind of goes right into this. And someone's asking about their child and teaching them how they develop and neuroplasticity and all that stuff. And I always give the examples when you see a kid looking around, they have to kind of look at something for a second, they tilt their head, and it takes them longer. It's because they don't know what's going on. They're building file folders and experiences every single day. So the little stuff of walking to the car that we take for granted, that your kid has to turn and look and wants to take a long time, is because they're not used to taking that in every day. So it's all new. So they actually see, they taste, touches—I'm good. I know that previous call was a lot. But, you know, that's all new, so they have to build those experiences and it has to get implanted. But we're so used to it, and this is kind of how it leads into why we don't see things coming, why we miss things, right?

We have the tabula rasa. We have that big white sheet, Brian, right? And with the child's eyes, or a nuanced schema that we didn't expect, a novel external arousal, right? We have tabula rasa, we have the white sheet that's up there. The first example onto that white sheet, you know, is the most vivid example, and it's, "Wow, and look at that!" And we think we'll never forget that.

That's why drugs rob our brain of their resources. So if I'm smoking the glass dick and I'm down there and, you know, behind a dumpster, you know, basing the meth or smoking it at my living room, but go on.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. As a matter of fact, we could show all the hobos that are sitting there.

But the idea, Brian, is when we do that, that's so vivid, that first experience, we want to chase that high. But guess what? Just like myelination moves us from our prefrontal cortex back to our amygdala, and there's no good rational thinking going on, no critical thinking. After we take that first hit of crack rock, we go and we buy another one, and we're chasing that high, and it doesn't come. Why? Because those synapses are dead. And so now some new synapses—it wasn't quite the same, but I tell you what, if I really sucked on the pipe and I smoked a bigger dose, and then, Brian, the next thing I know, I'm hooked. And so that's how we get stupid too. We go out there and we do these things over and over and over, and the behaviors, and we go, "Hey, we're going to do a checklist."

Look, you've seen the same thing because we fly a lot. You've seen that pilot walk around and he's got that little laminated checklist, and he throws his jacket on, and he has to do the little cup and check the oxygen level, then winglets, and everything else. Brian, I'm hoping that guy doesn't want to turn that plane into a lawn dart. But after he does that over and over, if he doesn't take a break and go, "Hmm," and get centered, he might make it.

But I think you actually, you kind of, you brought up the perfect example of someone who's been doing that job and that routine over and over again for years, maybe decades. But guess what they do? They still have a piece of paper with a no-crap checklist that they have to go through because everyone knows, because it's been proven, that over time, what happens? I start to push it. I don't worry about that. That guy, that guy or girl, that pilot, it's a great example. They likely know that checklist. They have it memorized. They don't ever have to look at that piece of paper again because it's the same type of airframe that they're flying over and over, day in and day out. But that's the whole purpose for it, is to go through. It's to—it's an ego checklist as much it is a functional checklist for the plane, right? Because that allows them that process to step through.

And I think that's a good way to kind of deal with a lot of these situations, right? Or do that critical thinking in the moment of, "Am I going too far?" is, you know, we always say, "Stop, look, listen, and smell," right? It's a very simple thing to do in those situations and go, "All right, yes, I've done this before. But what were those situations like? What was involved in those situations where I was successful before, right? Are those same things present here? Have I done everything in those? Are there other factors here that I haven't taken into account right now?" And because just that simple mental checklist, which we always talk about, right? A very simple mental checklist will stop me from, now I'm going to go, "Hey, you know what? Yeah, I did hit that turn at 50 miles an hour. But, you know what? It was sunny and dry every time I did it. And, you know what? That morning marine layer out here was hanging around for a while, and that means the road's a little bit more slick. Maybe I back it off a little bit." You know, and something is, is you're right, you do that. You can do that going 60 miles an hour on a bike, you know what I'm saying? Meaning it takes one second to go, "Oh, yeah, that's right. Those situations were slightly different. Here's how. Just because I could, should I?" That's the question.

The most basic question, Brian, is that you're saying, "Hey, I have to do quick calculus here." And you're exactly right, everybody should stop and do that. Stop, look, listen, feel. That's a gift of time and distance. But we still are encouraged to make mistakes because of file folders that are corrupted.

And I'll give you a quick one. Rode BMX when I was young, loved enduro bikes. I really could tear it up. My first bike that I bought that was actually a brand new bike that I had saved up all my life for was a Suzuki GS550, the fastest quarter-mile production motorcycle on the face of the planet. And then moving up to my next bike, you know, incrementally, right? Well, the problem was that I got caught outside of Colorado Springs. We were trained at a place called Red Devil, and I had my GS550, and we went up into a place called Garden of the Gods and rappelled. And it started snowing, and I don't even know if you can do that anymore, right? But it started snowing, and everybody goes, "Hey, park your bike, I'll give you a ride." So as I'm putting it up on the center stand, I go, "Dude, I've taken tougher shits than this!" You see the ego walked in, Brian, that led me into thinking that everything was okay.

I tried to drive my GS550 home after the third—and thank God I had a case guard—after the third spill on wet, slushy, icy roads, with the temperature changing, I pulled over. And we didn't have cell phones back then. I flagged down a car and said, "Hey, I'm an idiot. Take me to the emergency room," and then, you know, back to base. Brian, why do we do that? Well, we both know that you have adaptation and change blindness, and they make us dumb because they take away those senses because we assume that the situation is going to be the same. We don't predict novel situations.

No, it's hilarious you bring that up, and now we're on the motorcycle kick. But it reminds me of another motorcycle story. Me and my buddy, I met him up in—his wife had some work conference in San Francisco a few years ago. So I flew up there, met him, and we rented Harleys and rode through like Marin County and came back. I mean, it's gorgeous, it was so cool, right? But we go through some of the forest areas, and it's tight turns. And then we're on the coast, so like you're really paying attention to what you're doing. And guess what? I ended up dumping the bike. You know where I dumped the bike? When we pulled into a gravel parking lot to stop for a minute, and I just zigzagged one way too much, and it just literally just fell on its side. I was going like five miles an hour, it was nothing. And like, I laughed because I was like, "Of course, after that incredible ride where I should have dumped it, nope, I did it right here!"

And I think that's a, that's a great example. But I kind of wanted you to elaborate a little bit because you used the term, you said, "corrupted file folder." So for people kind of listening, kind of explain, because sometimes we don't always—we use that term "file folders" all the time. And so for people who kind of don't understand what we mean when we say "corrupted file folders" or "what do you mean by file folders"?

So I'll give you a perfect example of that, and you know me, I got to give a story. So this morning when the power was going out, Shelly was making these muffins in the oven for our breakfast this morning. So when I came back from my run and she was done getting ready, we would both have these cranberry orange, I think it is. I can still smell it in the house. So she put them in, and they weren't done when the power went out. So beyond hope that the oven was hot enough. Enough, yeah. But it was showing, you know, signs it wasn't. And what did she want to do? She wanted to open that oven door to check on it, which would have dropped that temperature. So now we were in a conundrum.

And that reminded me of the story when we were all locked up outside of Oceanside, and I was going, "Damn, I want a cake!" And so I walked from our crappy hotel—that company back then didn't take good care of us—and I walked from my crappy hotel to that gas station. I think it was a Circle K, is that the one? On, you know what I'm saying, had to pay the hooker off. And that's when the hookers come, Brian. And I walked into Circle K, and I walked around because again, we didn't have cell phones. And I'm thinking, "How did Shelly bake them damn muffins?" So I go, "Okay, well, there's sugar." And they didn't have like bags of sugar, they had like a packet. So I had a bunch of them, right? And then they had baking soda and baking powder. I didn't know the difference, so I took the wrong one. Then they had milk and eggs. I got the smallest milk, and it happened to be a chocolate milk because the date didn't expire. And I got eggs, and they had a four-pack of eggs were like $19.95. You get what I'm trying to say? And they've been there since Grant took Richmond.

If I took all this back and I saw the crappy hotel that we had, I only had a microwave. Microwaves generate heat. So I put all the stuff in the same bag, and I put them in the microwave, and I got a flipping hot mess, Brian. Why? Because Shelly followed file folders, recipe cards with very specific information on it. And she had experience, and there was little marks where she erased and added in red pen. That's experience, tacit knowledge, experiential knowledge. She had the knowledge. What I did is I mimicked it. And when my card came up, I go, "Yeah, I know there's eggs and butter in there." Do you know what I'm trying to say? But I was playing fast and loose. So, Brian, mine was a corrupt file folder. Just enough information to get me into trouble. You know, beginner's luck. I, uh, you know, put a Pop-Tart in a microwave once, and it tasted pretty good, and I thought that I could do it the same way again. That adaptation of those poorly put-together skills created the feeling that I could succeed when I really couldn't. And Brian, that'll get you killed. And I hope everybody understands the analogy here is that if you're following limited information, then you're drawing unreasonable conclusions at the same rate that that person with that uncorrupted file folder is doing it perfectly.

No, I think, I think that, that, that's a good explanation of the file folders and how we create those in mind, that, you know, that's those, those, those folds in our, our gray matter, right? All that stuff. Just those little, little file folders and experiences are with that.

Can I give you one more that I bet you and I have both done? Brian and I have both been divorced a number of times, okay? (Jokingly) For each other, Brian and I even hooked up one time, which was good, episode three. Yeah, what happens on the island, you know? But the idea is that, no, I remember after a couple of years being—first of all, Sean (Greg's previous wife) and I were together a long time without being married, but we might as well have been. Yeah, and we only got married for like the paperwork and stuff. But I remember being at a situation—and it came up again recently—at this situation where I go, "Babe, do you remember when we did this?" And she goes, "Wasn't me!" And she was pissed.

Well, the same thing happened just a couple of weeks ago. My brother, Brian (Greg's brother), and his wife, Lynn, just celebrated their anniversary. And, Brian, it was before all the concussion injuries and the closed head injuries. So Brian said, "Do you remember this?" And I go, "No." And he sent me a whole bunch of photos of me at their wedding. And, Brian, I never remembered it. And I go, "You wouldn't believe Brian sending me these wedding photos." And, "Do you remember anything about that?" She goes, "No, we weren't married!" And so she doesn't mean to be that way, but guess what? My file folder goes for the cognitively close enough. I love her, so I paint her in good file folders. And that's a corrupt file folder too.

No, I've—first of all, I've learned my lesson, I have definitely done that before. It's like, "Yeah, remember we went here? We had this like—" And I had Michaela (Brian's wife) do the, "That wasn't me! That must have been someone else!" And I was like, "Oh, man!" So I immediately stopped. I stopped doing that. Oh, yeah, because I just go like, "Oh, yeah, man, I'm looking forward, I've never had—I've never gone to that restaurant before, man, I'd love to try that out!" And she'll do the, "No, remember we went here last year?" And I go, "Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right, you know, we did go there." I was thinking, let her take lead, I don't—I don't even say anything anymore because I know that's a perfect example is so many corrupted file folders, especially like you said, if it's a location or an event, and you've been there over time, or happiness or sadness.

Yeah, yeah, whatever, whatever it is. You go, "Yeah, we were here!" And then they're, "No, no, that, that wasn't me!" And to you, you're going, "No, it was you! I remember, I can picture it! I could tell you all about the day and what you were wearing and this!" And like, "Yeah, but that wasn't me!" But that, that gets into how we—our memory, our own memory is horrible, right? I know everyone wants to think it's great, but our own memory works against us and corrupts those file folders. It inserts information where that didn't exist, or it only has a certain amount, right? Maybe it's got a 60% clear picture of what event it happened. But then when you want to recall it, well, you need to see 100%. You need the HD version. So what your brain will do is start implanting all that stuff into those memories. So now you're going off of—you're using a corrupt file to then base your decisions off of that, "Hey, let's keep going in this storm! I think we can make it a little bit farther! Hey, let's keep going up this mountain! Hey, we're going to be good here!" That's exactly how it works. And that's just another issue of our, our memory, not just our routines and our habits. Our memory actually playing with it.

So, memory and ego, Brian, I would say, I remember being in Iraq. And the Marines in this one sector had this little mud hut. You know, but it looked like adobe walls. Then on the roof they put a layer of sandbags and had an aluminum folding chair, okay? And that was the OP (observation post). Do you hear what I'm trying to say? So then some other wise guy came in and he put some wood up on top of it and put a 5/8-inch marine ply, but the same chair. You get what I'm trying to say? And then they added some sandbags to that, and sandbags to that. And the "tale of the tape," the true story, the sad story was that it collapsed in on those and injured a couple of Marines very seriously.

Now, you don't think in a million years that those Marines were stupid and reckless. What happened is they kept building, and nobody ever sat back and said, "Hey, listen, wait a minute, this might be—" Do you see what's happening? So that quantum leap of logic can get us into mistakes too. We're so focused on the prize, Brian, we're so focused on the safety and security and being able to see that we didn't notice that that weight has exceeded it. So we make mistakes of math and of science, and we make mistakes of perception all the time.

So as humans, as long as we acknowledge that, that we could have made a mistake, and step back, like even in an argument. You know, when I get in an argument, I'm right, right? You might as well, you get what I'm trying to say? And so Shelly and I, bam, bam, like the rams that you see coming up. And I want to step back and go, "Hey, maybe you're just being a douchebag about this." But it's hard. I would say that that's the first rule that we have to learn. You say this all the time, and I love it. You give the people a challenge, "Take your phone and put it in a drawer and walk away for an hour." You know, nobody can do that. And you say, "Do it for a day!" Right? I would say, give yourself the gift of time and distance whenever you think you've fallen into a routine. Take a step back and measure those corners. Take a look at that dialogue. You know, refer to your check-in-the-box guy that's going to make you smarter, and it's going to make you safer, and things aren't going to slip by. I truly believe that.

No, and that's, that's kind of why I brought up that in-the-moment, you know, motorcycle example, because this is all stuff you can do in the moment. And that's what I like, the practical, you know, takeaways, like, "Okay, great. All of these things occur. My memory is horrible. I have these corrupt file folders you're talking about. Hey, my experience in this might actually lead to my downfall. So what the hell am I supposed to do?"

And exactly what you said is just run through that and go. As soon as they go, "Oh, well, I've seen this before, I know what to do in this situation." All it takes sometimes is that quarter second, half second, one second to go, "Wait a minute, maybe, maybe this, maybe this isn't the same exact situation." And we call that the tactical patience. But I mean, your own tactical freeze.

You're exactly right, Brian. Do you think history has ever come to the point of this discussion we're having today? We'll see. Likely no.

No, no, no, I think it's highly unlikely. I should copyright this.

But think about, "Stop and smell the coffee." You've heard that term.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

That's what they're talking about. Before coffee was found, it would be, "Stop and smell the roses." "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." We could go back to the etymology and pull out all these examples where people said, "Take that pause for a second and take a look around and assess." Because if we don't, Brian, not only are we going to miss the beauty of the moment, everything else, but it's just like conversation. We spend so much time preparing to fill in the dead air after that talking head stops, rather than stopping and effectively listening to people. So that's another routine that we have to break. The routine should be set down all my stuff, listen to what the person is saying, and then think for a minute and answer. We don't do that.

So that, that's the—that goes into kind of actually what you brought up earlier, but the mindfulness stuff that John McCaskill, Michelle, and all those folks do is that that's the routine of you actually can build in a routine of stopping to smell the roses now. Exactly. Not just stopping to smell the cocaine, you know what I mean? You're actually in the moment of stopping.

And funny you should say that, Sigmund. That's really great. What is it, Psychology Today, the famous line, what is it? "How do you say, 'When I see a random line, say, 'No, thank you, I'm fine.'" Right? That's it. But, no, that's one of them.

Exactly, exactly what we were talking about of exercising that tactile patience and what those mindfulness folks do. And that's how introspective it's literally stopping and for five minutes going, "All right, what do I need to do? What do I need to think about?" Man, that resets that brain. It resets your, your way of your critical thinking of you now taking in everything around. But we have to train to do that, right? That was the whole military thing is, "Hey, you get inserted on a patrol and you would first thing you do is SILLS (Stop, Look, Listen, Smell)." You literally sit there and do nothing for sometimes 45 minutes to an hour just to see if anyone's around in the area, what happened, what shift occurred, what to really assimilate yourself into that environment. Now you, you don't necessarily have an hour to sit around and figure out what's going on. And the better you get, guess what? You can compress time, right?

Yeah. Okay. So I'm on the third reading of Andy Brown's book. And folks, if you know the answer to this, tell me. Andy Brown will tell me. So I was getting free Kindle books for the longest time, and I'm reading Kindle books, and I read like nine books a week and got them all over the house and everything. And now I can't get the free one, and it wants me to spend $14.99 a month. So now I'm just looking at the city as I'm running, and I can't do that. So I got Andy Brown's book, and I got it all dog-eared and everything. So I'm at the section where Dean Mellberg is walking through shooting people like it's a contest—every single person at Fairchild Air Force Base. And Andy Brown was the guy who stopped the shooter. Just everyone just listened, right now. Sorry about that. Great, great book. Please look it up. And shout out to Andy.

So, Brian, every single person, and you know how detailed Andy Brown is in going through his interviews, every single person said, "I thought I saw a car backfire. I thought I heard a car backfire. Yeah, I thought it was a locker door slamming. I thought it was fireworks." That's a corrupt file folder. That's cognitively close enough. That's our brain going into denial. If we already have those—just those three, Brian—if we have those three things competing with us, now our amygdala is trying to drain the prefrontal cortex so it can go into fight or flight, and we have the catecholamine dump, and we now have all—you see all the stuff? Life is complicated. It wasn't as complicated when all we had to do is think if Oogluck and Muktar and I had to go out and wrestle a badger into the cave and eat it. So what happens is if we don't take time to back up and slow down and take a look at the stuff that's around us, to resort to the routine, we could be inhibited in our making. And if we too much rely on a routine, then life is not going to be fun and exciting, and we may fall into that rut, that groove on the record.

No, and this is part of the science that we kind of get into when we teach, Greg. And speaking of, you know, if anyone who—we always, we, we generally sometimes talk about things like, you know, game theory and M-theory and, and all this. And speaking of, as we're talking about Andy Brown, is guess who just popped up is watching us on Facebook Live? It's super string, baby. Super streaming right there in action. He just popped up with, "Thanks." I was like, "Oh, there's Andy." But that was really cool. I kind of know. But think about where I was going with it.

Well, that's absolutely so cool, and we love Andy. Everybody go and buy his book. But, Brian, the second half of that book, which is interwoven, so it's every other chapter, basically, the B-52 pilot. Listen, that guy knew routine. He kept pushing the envelope, kept pushing the envelope, and got to the point where his adaptation and change blindness actually fought against him to the point that he thought he could do a loop in a B-52, and crashed and killed himself and a bunch of other people. What we don't want, Brian, is we don't come upon these things without a plan. And that's where training really changes the behavior. Education is good, you can read about it, but training for an event makes your mind more agile and more adept at these new and novel situations that come in.

No, and that's, I mean, that that's kind of what we harp on all the time. And I think sometimes we don't, you know, people can overthink it too, meaning when it comes to, you know, we always say training and what you have to do. But a mental rehearsal can be a form of training. That's what we're talking about right now. That whole mindfulness stuff is literally a mental rehearsal to remember, "Hey, things are, you know, hey, let's, let's be positive about my interactions throughout the day. Hey, let's not just jump into something. Hey, let's take a moment to think." That's just your brain will fall into that.

And that's why I always take it down to, in the moment, no matter how chaotic that is, it's about being in that moment and going, "Yes, I've done this a thousand times before." Because even it was powerful. One we talked about, and folks, if you're listening or watching along, just follow along. There'll be more announcements. We did that video breakdown with Dr. Carlos Vasquez the other day for his show. And it kind of brought up a really, really great point of what, you know, this police officer who pulled someone over, and he'd almost got killed. The gun got stuck in his face, the guy tried to fire, and the weapon misfired. So by pure chance, luck, he survived.

But, you know, you can go back and read the reports and the subsequent testimony afterwards. And even though, you know, we're watching the video and you can tell he's in that rut, right? He's done this a hundred times before. He's already set up for what he likely thinks this traffic stop is to him. He's going up, "It's another DUI. I'm going to get it. I got to set up my car this way. I'm going to get him out. I'm going to walk him towards this way. Have the field sobriety test. It's in view of the camera." Like all this stuff you can tell even how he approaches it. But then you go to his testimony and what he had said was, you know, "Before I even—before I even walked up on the car, I noticed that he adjusted his mirror so that he could see me walking up." Which is generally the opposite because it was at night. So we had this massive, massive what we call the "wall of light" of all those lights shining directly into the vehicle. So the officer can see. And if you're sitting in that passenger or you're sitting in that driver's seat, that light hits your mirror and goes in your face, it's blinding you. You can't see. But he can make out in the mirror that this guy was watching and adjusted it. So that demonstrated intent on his part. Even though he saw that, even though he had never seen that before in his entire career, he still did what he was—still stuck in that loop of, "I've done this before. I'm in this pattern. I'm in this routine of what occurs on a DUI stop." And he almost, almost died. So I, I, and this isn't a bash on him, it's to show how powerful that is. Just how powerful that routine can be.

So, folks, listeners, readers, watchers, whatever you're doing right now, Brian just gave you a high-level definition. I want to give you a street-level definition. There's a TV show on. Look, a lot of us are locked at home, and if it wasn't for the television, we'd be, you know, nothing in the house is strong enough that I can hang myself, so I resort to television. You get what I'm trying to—I've survived purely because of structural integrity and nothing—do you understand the issues in engineering here? So the two things that are Suicide Awareness Week, folks, there's great—thank you. We've all thought of it, man.

So, on the television, in the continuous loop, I got the Sportsman Channel, which I'm getting for free, and then Game Show Network because I love trivia, you know that, Brian. So there's a show on, and if I'm getting it right, it's called America Says with John Michael Higgins, who's the guy from A Cappella group movies. He's really a funny guy, also Best in Show and stuff, you know.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know who you're talking about. He's hilarious!

So yeah, what it is, is they'll, they'll give a blank, kind of like the old Match Game. But they have four people that are lined up, and they say, "Okay, so America says this," and then for the final round, they'll say, "Okay, so when I go to the beach, I never want to forget my blank." One answer, two answer, three answer, four answer. The people watch this—go to this show and watch it just one time. The people in their mind spin the Rolodex and come up on what they think the answer is, specifically the ones where it's only one answer, and they've got to get it quickly because they have a countdown clock, right? So, "I hate strong blank." And the answer is "C for coffee," right? But they don't know that yet, so they're waiting. And the guy goes, "Okay, the answer to the blank is," and now they show it.

When you see the person read the clue, and in their mind, they thought it was "coffee," and it's not. All of a sudden, you hear it, but that—and there's a break—and all of a sudden they go, "Hornet!" And it's not even close! Why? Because that file folder spun, and it came up blank. So what, so what? So if you protract that out to the real world, that all of a sudden this minor collision turns into the guy two weeks ago that walked out and shot the other guy. Minimal damage, everything else, but his cup was full, Brian. Stress fractures were going. Listen, you don't know when your brain is going to come up on that, where the guy goes, "You want to die today?" And all of a sudden you're going, "Holy crap! What's the answer?" You know, "Answer line!" you're yelling over your shoulder. That's where training steps in. Muscle memory is a good part of training: load, clear, reduced stoppage, you get what I'm trying to say, increased distance, covering, concealment. But it's not all—you got to have that cognitive training as well, Brian. And cognitive training and part-task training and practical application rehearse for real events. And it doesn't have to be a specific event. Your brain will create myelin increases and say, "This is close enough." That's when a routine can save us.

All right. Well, I think that's a kind of a pretty good place to come, bring it in for a landing, so to speak, I guess, sticking with all of these pilot analogies and motorcycle riding analogies, and suicides, and [the fact that Greg] doesn't have strong enough rope, is what he's telling us. But, unless you have something to add on to that, Greg, I think that'd be kind of a good spot to take away from just understanding the fact that it's—this is a good two sides of the same coin, right? We need routines, we literally need them for survival. We need them so we don't burn excess calories. We need them to get more things done in a day. We need them because they're beneficial to us. But understanding that there's, there's two sides to that coin. And the other side being is those same routines are what lead us into danger. They are what get us killed. They are not, you know, trusting a bear too much, right, for your example at the beginning. But that's exactly how it occurs.

So I think just one—step one is always the awareness of it, right? Okay, I have to at least know that this is going in. And that's one of the big things I've tried to—I tell people sometimes, just like driving around with you. Whenever we're on the road together, we're doing stuff, and I'm driving, and you're calling stuff out, and I'm calling stuff out that I see, and you're getting a better eye on it because I have to focus on driving or whatever it is, right? And it's just being fascinated with your environment around you and creating that explanatory storyline and going as we're pulling into the gas station, "Oh, guy coming around the back." Hey, maybe it's enough to at least go to a different gas station or something, you know, and not fall into that same routine of doing stuff. But knowing that you will. And I think just having a plan, saying, "Hey, you know what? Am I going down this path for the wrong reason? Or is this just another routine that I can go down?" And I think that alone, taking that second to think about it, can and will literally save your life.

Yep, that acknowledgement and getting to spend some time, even if it's a matter of minutes or hours, doing a ride-along with a trained mentor that knows what they're talking about and showing you certain things will cause the scales to fall from your eyes, and you'll see your situation like never before. And routines can be your best friend, or they can get you killed.

All right. Well, on that, I think it's a good place to wrap. Thanks everyone for listening. Always check the episode details and some links. We're going to throw some stuff up in there. We got more webinars and stuff coming up soon. Still free. If you're not following us on social media, you're missing out a lot. For those of you just have kind of just started listening to us, TheHumanBehaviorPodcast@gmail.com. Any questions or stuff you want to go over or do you want us to talk about, please email me. And thanks for sharing our stuff. If you enjoy this podcast, you think it's good information, scroll down to the bottom where you can rate it, give it five stars. It does help. Liking stuff, sharing stuff, it actually helps us out a lot. It kind of gets the message out there. And again, we want to be able to continue providing great content for free. We've got some partnerships with other folks coming up that we're excited about. If you haven't checked out Dr. Carlos on his YouTube channel, please check that stuff out as well. I'll put links up to it, but we're going to be doing more stuff with him in the future, and it's going to be really cool. I think if you're listening, you're going to enjoy it.

Cool, cool article in this month's Budo International Magazine about Arcadia, Brian. Maybe I'll make that through that link. I think you'll be interested.

That'll definitely be down in the episode details. So check that out too, folks. It's pretty cool. There's some great photos of us kind of in action too that I dig. There's a great one of Shelly that I love because she, she, she's training a group of soldiers, but you could also tell she's about to be like, "All right, listen, I told you this already." She's about to do the admonition.

Yeah, exactly.

All right, man. Well, thanks everyone for listening in. Don't forget that training changes.