L.O.G. 187 Cognitive Flexibility

All right, well, good morning, Greg. Now that we have our calendar invite situation figured out, we can go ahead and get on and record The Human Behavior Podcast.

We don't know if we haven't figured it out. It's working now, so let's not be too ambitious. Next thing, he's going to revert to smoke signals to get you to come on or something.

But, today, we're talking about, sort of, continuing with the discussion, I guess, over the last few podcast episodes. We had in the previous ones where we talked about different ambushes and we talked about different things in the environment, how we process stuff. But today is kind of about what we call, sort of, like, external triggers, what triggers these things to happen.

I'm sort of reminded, and you probably have other stories for this because you're in mountain lion territory. As they live around you, you send me pictures, quite the expert, their paw prints, which are the size of my head, so I'm terrified. But you know, it kind of reminded me of different animal attacks you see. I remember there was one where, if anyone listening remembers this, I'll try to find the video, but it's just a guy mountain biking. He's cruising through, and then literally all of a sudden, because he's got his camera on, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this mountain lion or cougar just pops up and just goes for him, just launches right at him.

It's like, seemingly, this guy's just cruising along. He wasn't going real fast, not slow, just kind of doing his thing. So, he's in his moment. Obviously, he still is a mountain biker. He's looking for different dangerous obstacles, things that could get in his way. This person was experienced, and then they missed this cougar or mountain lion coming at them, which is not unheard of. Obviously, they're really good at hiding in their environment. But it's like, all of a sudden, it sort of happened out of nowhere. I just thought, you know, you know more about animals than I do. You've been out in Colorado for a long time, but something triggered that animal, right? Something had to trigger it to go, "I need to kill now." I don't know if it was hungry, if it felt threatened. You know, it's very simplistic, especially in the animal kingdom, but we're part of that animal kingdom as humans, we are. So, I think today we kind of talk about different triggers, what is it that causes that sort of reaction.

My thing, first off, folks listening, happy belated Thanksgiving. We're now working out twice as hard so we aren't fat at Christmas. Great, so we can eat more. Disregard our New Year's promises.

Here's the thing. Yesterday was an anniversary of an ambush. So, let's first start off saying this is not going to be a mega episode where your big boy and big girl pants because we're going to go some places that are going to be uncomfortable. Second of all, there are predators amongst us, and there are two types of predators that are most interesting to us: the provoked attack or the unprovoked attack. An unprovoked attack is where something happens like you're saying with a trigger moment. A provoked attack is where I decide to ambush you based on a grievance, for example, or kill somebody.

Yeah, exactly. Not spontaneous.

Precisely. We can add a bunch of words to it, but if we understand those basics, we'll get a lot farther today. So, yesterday, four coppers in Lakewood, Washington – in Lakewood, Washington State, we teach about it in the class – were killed by Maurice Clements. He walked into—

This is the coffee shop.

Yeah, yesterday it was the anniversary, and that's really where my mindset was, Brian, when we were talking about this, you know, the difference between an ambush and an unprovoked attack. When Maurice Clements walked into the Pierce County— outside of Tacoma, into a coffee shop, I don't remember the name to save my ass, but when he went in, there were four coppers that were having coffee. Three were at the table, one was at the counter ordering. He shot the first two spontaneously without saying a word, in the head. He had a plan, Brian; this wasn't an accidental discharge, this wasn't an ND. The third one tried to wrestle with his gun. He shot that officer in the head as well. The copper at the counter fired a couple of rounds from the counter and got Clements with a gunshot wound, non-debilitating. Clements was able to return fire and kill that copper. Four coppers in a matter of nanoseconds, and then walk out. He wasn't killed for a couple of days later when he encountered a Seattle copper on the road and there was an exchange.

So, we're not talking about that case, do your homework, go study that. But what I'm bringing that up is, one, anniversary day, cops died needlessly. Let's talk about two things: one, that was an ambush attack, but the cops were ill-prepared for the ambush attack, so we need to talk about mindset. We'll talk about mindset for both provoked and unprovoked attacks. Make sense? So, what you're talking about with the cougar was an instance where the cougar's predatory instincts kicked in because the human mimicked the behavior of prey.

Now, I want to parallel that for a second, Brian, because you and I were together about three years ago in Philadelphia. We were in a bad side of town and we're filming a predator that was working humans in that arena. You remember that guy?

Yep.

Okay, so we went to a location in a coffee shop and tried to surreptitiously videotape him after observing him with humans. The thing was, he's a really good predator, a place to hide, and we were close. We were too close, but we were also dressed like this, you know, we were dressed for business to go in and teach a class. Just out of his periphery, he catches me. You remember, I moved up the camera to try to get the predator and the prey. At first, we were trying to get the prey, and that was his trigger moment. I mean, he burst out of his hide. He came in, he confronted us, and the way we did it is just like you do with a bear—except a grizzly bear—we played dead. "What are you talking about? I'm taking a picture of this. I have no idea who you are. Hey, you're scaring me. Leave me alone." And he left because he was like, "Wait a minute, I think I'm wrong." What he didn't understand is he tripped on his surveillance team, and we just played it off.

That's a great example too, you know, where we were up because we were inside of that Dunkin' Donuts looking out at him, you know, we had to come right up on him to get those photos and video. There was no other way, right? I posted one on Arcadia's Instagram, but him standing there. But yeah, he came in, and he was a street smart kid, man. He was all over it.

But why, Brian? Because that's his environment. That's his environment, and we were interrupting his hunt. Do you get what I'm trying to say? He was going victim to victim to victim, and what happened is we posed— he didn't know when he came in. He didn't know whether we were competition, whether we were cops. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Whether we were previous victims, he didn't know, he didn't care. And that's what happened with the cougar. The cougar saw the bike, the cougar thought, "Hey, this is a gazelle, this is a deer, this is an antelope, this is a food source." Motion triggered a chemical dump, and boom, "I'm after it," even bowling the person over. And then when the person starts yelling and fighting back, going, "Wait a minute, this is different," the cougar went away in this specific incident you're talking about in California, and came back and attacked again. These are predatory instincts.

Let me ask you a question. The case where we were in Philly and the cougar case, did that have to do— did their reaction have something to do specifically just with the fact with our proximity, meaning because we were so close? That somebody was one part of the trigger. But meaning, would they likely have had that same reaction if that kid saw us down the street and we were doing it and we were 100 yards away?

If we had done, for example, we didn't have time to set up a surreptitious—

I know.

So, we tried to do the best that we could, and we failed. It's interesting, but we claim when we make mistakes. We were too close, too much motion. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Way too much motion.

But we also had to do it in stride, right?

Yeah. So, had we been in the vehicle, had we been more further away, had we done photos of a couple of different places first to show, "Hey, here's the camera," then there wouldn't have been that spooking action. Do you get what I'm trying to say?

Well, yeah, even if we had already had our coffees and donuts, or whatever we're getting at Dunkin' Donuts, in our hands, that it would have even been different because it would have changed.

But we weren't, and you know what? We looked in that environment, we looked like we were paying attention. And when we attended to that, that's when— look, people don't get that in East Africa, 100 people every year are dragged off by lions, they're killed by lions. In their environment, it's probably 500 with elephant attacks. Hippos, most dangerous thing in the environment. Why? Because you're not attending to them. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Now, if you give an animal too much attention, a wild animal, it's going to strike an attack, specifically based on proximity, smell, motion, those types of things. If you don't pay attention to the cues of a wild animal, you're going to fall prey. So, you see how the periphery is really where we're at here. Your central vision, your problem-solving brain would go, "Hey, I'm not going to stick my hand in that cage," right? But when we calm down those cops in the ambush situation at the coffee shop, do you get what I'm trying to say? Never expected a guy that morning to come in and shoot them in the head. Do you see how that works?

Right. And these are trained, experienced veterans.

Okay. The bicyclist, the same thing.

Yeah, he's trained to look for those, you said it, the obstacles in his environment. But yeah. Okay, so continuing on that, if they are trained, and let's say it's military, law enforcement, just a person who understands that, "Yeah, I've got to be aware in my surroundings." The mountain bikers, for example, he knew the threat, he knew the potential there. Now he missed it, and he's still looking for that stuff, and understood. But the idea is then, why don't we then see those in those situations where we should expect to? We still get fooled by the ambush part, we still get fooled by the attack.

And one of the examples is— and I'm not at all talking trash on this example of a fellow Marine— but a Marine who was awarded the Medal of Honor in Afghanistan. I remember him talking about the description of, "Yeah, we're going to this village, and all of a sudden," and he gave the perfect description of an atmospheric shift: "People started leaving, the shops started closing, people were grabbing kids and running off the street." And that's when we knew it was on. And it's like, "Okay, but you kept going. Like, you kept going, and Marines died that day." It's like, why didn't we choose an alternate course of action? Why didn't we stop right there, pull back, and go, "Hang on a second"? And I understand that we have, "Oh, we've got a mission to do." It's like, "Yeah, but you just identified everything and then came to the conclusion that we're likely—"

And I'll use my own example. That same thing in Al Anbar Province of Iraq, or Ramadi, way back in like 2004 or '05. Same thing, early morning, coming from a hide site out to go link up with another team. And we're doing the— you know, by this time there's usually traffic at this intersection. "Hey, you know what? Usually people are out by now. It's kind of gray and dark and, you know, there's—" Okay, well, we should probably—

Offering up all the cues.

Yeah, "Let's just post security and bound across in buddy pairs." Right? And we bound across, and the second we step out and we start going across that intersection, that medium machine gun fire starts hitting down on us. And we're just, it's kicking up asphalt as it's hitting us, and we're getting hit by ricochets (or shrapnel from bullet impacts) because it's so close. And we made it across site. And like, literally, later that day we're like, "We knew that was it. The game was on. The fix was in." And we went anyway. And like, I don't even know why. No matter what, I think of that story immediately, but that's the one that just came to mind. But that, why do we do that? And I had already— we knew better at that point, not just the training, but already had experience enough in the deployment where we still went, we didn't come up with an alternative course of action.

Wrong training. Wrong mind limits our cognitive flexibility. So, it can be the greatest, most expensive training in the world with real experts, but if they don't imbue the proper mindset in the training, like this horseshit, pardon me, about the warrior, the cops being a warrior, that's a wrong direction. Okay? We train one way, and therefore our responses aren't flexible. We knowingly put ourselves at risk. And what I mean by that is inevitability. Cops died. Domestics are the number one call the cops go on, so it's relevant to your firefight example. And cops are dying more on domestics than any other thing. The reason is because cops don't see the inherent danger in a domestic. Cops die in pursuits and kill people in pursuits and other fleeing people kill people in pursuits. Why? Because they fail to anticipate or acknowledge physics.

So, if I can't get you to pay attention to simple physics, and I don't make the brake fade part of the training, and I don't understand what happens when things get wildly out of control. So, how does a domestic spin wildly out of control? One, we don't anticipate it to be a fatal event. We don't think that the person is going to be a family annihilator. We don't think that the person standing across from me that's arguing about the turkey being cold again when my mom's here or whatever else, is willing to kill me. Do you see that? So, once we get to the point where we're misreading cues, in other words, we go into a domestic, so a domestic is a domicile, it's a house, and yet people are agitated. Do you get what I'm trying to say? And maybe we've even been here before. But what it is, it's voices, it's an argument, but we've all been in arguments over and over our entire life, and guess what? Rarely have they ever ended in a fatality. So, we now take those file folders, Brian, from our wrong training. A copper can tell you at the academy, over and over, "The domestic is the most dangerous. They will turn on you, they will kill you." That's not training. Do you see what I'm trying to say? So, we have to alter how the training happens, or we're going to put ourselves in a situation where we fail to size up the situation or assess the risks properly.

Those four coppers that went out of their jurisdiction yesterday, 10 years ago, had no idea that their breakfast was going to cost them their life. They didn't know that there was going to be a random intersection with a predator, and our society is full of predators, that was going to be triggered by the fact that, "Here's four cops and they're completely not expecting me, so I'm going to walk in, ambush." The bicyclist knew that he was going into an area where there was a history that mountain lions could attack, and he was looking for his tire pressure, and he made sure he wore his helmet and his elbow pads. Brian, that training shone through. Do you see what I'm trying to say? But not the, "Hey, this environment and a mistake in this environment could kill me." That's why I love your centering before you go out every day: "This is the day I might die. This is the day somebody might challenge me." That's not being paranoid, and you cannot be hyper-vigilant. But if those four coppers would have said, "Hey, listen, this is certain death, us sitting here, you know what I'm saying, Bill? Why don't we move it over to that table and back ourselves up to this corner?" Do you get what I'm trying to say? There's a million things. "Let's spread load out our vehicles." And people are going, "Yeah, but you're talking, what do they call that, the armchair quarterback?" No, I'm not. I've been preaching this my entire life. I've been preaching this for over 40 years, Brian, and what happens is we're not getting safer. Why? Because we don't understand that the hippo is the most dangerous.

Well, we go to the zoo and we don't understand that a giraffe will kick your ass if you get too close to it.

Yeah, but here's the thing, and this is why it goes back to just the topic today of those triggers, right? Meaning, that same, my that same action, most of the time, you know, it could have been, it's benign. The reaction isn't going to be, "Okay, I'm going to kill these guys. Let's go." "Oh, I've got warrants, I'm out of here," right? Or the same thing, like cougar or the animal, "Oh, that could be a predator. I'm good and I'm gone. I want to live to fight another day." So, it's that trigger is for the predator, right? Could go either way to the most simple things.

But you and I know people that we hate to see the training that they do. And let's just throw it out in the clear, related day. Okay, I am an anti-stoic. Why? Stoicism had its chance. Okay? It's about being apathetic and detached. And you're saying, "I can't control my environment so I'll just, hey, I'll just apathetic about it and say, 'Screw it,' and live in my environment." No. First of all, you know, and we have dear friends that are stoics and just keep beating the drum. So that doesn't mean you don't like the person that—

Yeah, you and I, I personally disagree. I think a lot of people take it as learning to control your emotions. That's a good thing.

Meaning, but that's different.

Right.

Right, precisely. But you can't use this big banner because you take everything with it when you buy the banner. When Marcus Aurelius walked in, do you get what I'm trying to say? He was thinking things out, and he even had discussions about, "This might not be the right thing." But let's not go there. Let's go to another person.

I've seen— listen, cops are in executive protection, they just don't get paid extra for it. Cops are in executive protection, but they just don't have a much smaller mission. They've got the mission of protecting everybody, including themselves and including the criminal and the Constitution of the United States. So, when I see these EP things, I read an incredible article by a good friend of Mexico City, Ivan Ivanovic, and what he was talking about is all of the smoke and mirrors and squealing tires and shooting, you know, fully automatic and all that other stuff. You know, that might have its place, but that's not executive protection, that's Bollywood, Hollywood. And he's mirroring what we're talking about. If this is a guy that's in one of the most dangerous places on the face of the planet, who has the right to carry those guns, and you know what I'm saying, is likely to get in a shootout. But then we have a couple of American companies that we know, and we know the people that are in the companies, and they're constantly doing— look, I was the most highly trained cop I knew in a very dangerous area for 40 goddamn years, 27 of which in uniform. And guess what? I never used those tactics and had a bag with an M4, you know, fully automatic, extra clips, smoke grenades. I'm not saying that's the wrong direction, but I'm saying if that's where your head is for your training, then what you've done is you've limited every other response outside of that, and you're not cognitively flexible enough to make decisions in the moment.

When that guy walked in, the guy in Tacoma, when he walked into that coffee shop, Brian, he had a gun, he had predatory looks, and he had a mission. And he was mission-focused. And he took on four of the best trained protectors in the world. So, you think you going through a 50 or 250 or 500 day of class is going to make you better than those experienced road vets? Do you really think that you're going to go out and flip a tire and spin a car and go off on the road and be safer or stronger? That's the thing. If you're going to train something, train your brain, train your mindset, train how you read and assess environments, not all this horseshit that we see that's just getting worse. We can't get a class, you know why? Because we're not doing breaching with explosives.

I think a lot more people are sort of realizing that, or—

Well, God, I hope so.

Well, you get the people that have been through all that, have been doing all that stuff, and those are the ones reaching out because they realize, "Hey, this isn't— this is a tool, not an answer." But to kind of go back to the stuff you're talking about, cognitive flexibility and external triggers. I mean, we see a lot of this, right? We see in the situation where there's another one you sent me where a guy was handcuffed and then still able to shoot and kill a police officer. Another one was, you know, they're searching a trailer, and the guy popped out and started shooting. And, you know, we sort of picked this way of dealing with it. We're right then and there, we're like, "Well, see if this officer would have done this at that time, and this officer would have done that." And, you know what? We could have done that with either the less-lethal shotgun to go ahead and they would have been authorized in the video. They had these little checklists. But you know, that's not what we're saying to do is, you know, I have to expect certain things and I have to realize what's likely and what's unlikely.

And when someone's running and hiding, so right away, if I'm— I don't care what this is, Greg, if you're chasing me and I have to go run and hide, I'm going to do what? What are my options if you find me and I'm hiding? I don't have a lot, right? So, I either have to— and they're spectral. We could go one, two, three, four. From the lowest is, "Okay, you got me." Oh, you got way to a fatal. Yeah, to, "You're not taking me alive." So, that's my continuum right there. On one side is just, "All right, here's my hands up, you got me." And the other end is, "There's no way you're taking me alive. I'm going to kill my way out of the situation." So, that's, you know, there's a few options in between there, right? But not many. Right? And so, that's what I—

Yeah, exactly.

So, those are the things you have to compare in the moment in those situations.

So, I'll give you this. A couple of days ago— I don't know when this is going to air, so it'll be a week or it'll be two days or it'll be nine days, you know what I'm saying— but a couple of days ago, there was a dentist that got caught up in a thing. A female comes out of the stupor, he's performing oral sex on the female. It wasn't consensual. They figure out that he doped her up with tequila and some other things, and took advantage of her. So, now they go to the doctor and they figure out that he'd done it to two other, or how many other victims. Brian, within 48 hours, that doctor killed himself and is laying dead in a ditch. Why am I saying that? He was a predator under his conditions. Do you get what I'm trying to say? You had to be drugged, you had to be asleep. "Now, I'll take my photos, I'll do my thing." Do you get what I'm saying? In case he hasn't even been adjudicated, I'll go out on a limb. But when confronted, Brian, he didn't attack. He didn't attack and kill the females and burn the place down and cover up evidence. Do you get what I'm trying to say?

Yeah.

So, you have a spectrum of people. You have serial killers and spree killers and carjackers and just meth heads and terrorists or a predator, a pedophile. What happens is we have to consider, would you— let me turn it into a question. 10 years ago, 15 or 20 years ago, would you have figured if you told the person at a McDonald's or any fast food counter, "Hey, my goddamn fries are cold," that that might cost you your life? Did you ever consider that that balance would occur? Now it's a fact of life. So, if you pull over and somebody says, "Hey, can I help you with the spare tire?" and you go, "Hey, go screw yourself," you might be dead. You might be shot and killed. So, you have to adjust because the relationships are different. A flexible mind is going to anticipate potential conflict and do what, Brian? Insulate yourself against it by creating distance, creating a time-distance gap, talking your way out of the situation, taking cover before you talk. Do you get what I'm trying to say? And that's what we're not doing now.

So, a copper relaxes into a situation of a domestic because they've been to many domestics. And the more domestics they've been to that haven't been fatal, do you get what I'm trying to say? The dumber we get. So, therefore, the training needs to ramp up in those. If you don't have a course change, then you're going to be in it. And that's called the Titanic. Let's call that, do you hear what I'm trying to say? Iceberg dead ahead. And what did they do? A couple thousand people died in the icy water. What we're not doing in training, Brian, is we're not taking the core of the incident, and we're spending so much time on individual traits and how the room looks and who the actor is and what their dialogue is, rather than the inevitability of the situation.

Yeah, and that's the way I would sort of describe it as, we're missing the point. We're missing the point because we're focusing on these small factors that we think we can control, because, well, we probably can control those small factors. And what you're talking about, what I see a lot, is what educational experts, I guess, would call, you know, it's almost too compartmentalized. Right? We're going to teach you how to do this—one specific skillset or one specific task—without giving you the big picture. But you're going to get really, really, really good at it. And that's why a lot of people go back to like the range and shooting stuff, which is all fun and it's all great. I don't do it as much anymore because now I'm not being paid to do it, and someone, and the taxpayers aren't paying my ammo. So—

Exactly.

A lot less live fire for me.

Yeah. You got a job every day, and you have to go to work, right?

But even in, when you talk about training, and it's like, "Okay, you're going to go do all these things to become better tactically," but you're getting really, really, really, really good at that, and that may never help you. And that's the thing. It's not that it's bad, it's not that it won't do anything or won't work, it's that that's not the thing that you need. And creating this, what you call, this sort of cognitive flexibility, which, you know, if I compartmentalize everything and I look at these tiny little things and I look at it right there at "bang" it's like, "Well, if this person would have been standing here instead of here, then the offender wouldn't have been able to get that shot off." And we're going like, "Wait a minute. Just think about it. You never thought that the guy was in there? That's the problem. That's the key. That's the central source." But what happens though, Greg, is then we go, "All right, we need to change our tactics and we need to get a new tool and we need to train for this event because if I would have known this, maybe tactically where to stand or hold this, and then he wouldn't have got that shot off, or so-and-so wouldn't have got killed." It's like, "No, no, no, no. You're missing the whole point. Those things will happen naturally. That part of the training is good enough to where you know what to do. You will know what to do in those situations if you've made the right decisions beforehand."

So, listen, I'll tell you how you can fix that right now because it's a point of contention with me. You know how I get pissed at shitty training. So, go out and spend 50 bucks and buy yourself a professional Jack-in-the-Box—a real good one—a metal base with a clown or whatever you want jumping out of the box. And have it ready. Take it to off-duty or, correction, on-duty roll call for the next few weeks. And every day during roll call, turn it just a couple of cranks so the thing pops out and look everybody in the eye and go, "Every once in a while, you're going to open a drawer or a closet or lift up a mattress, and there's going to be somebody there with a gun that wants it worse than you do. Be careful out there." And repeat that message over and over and over. And one day, after months, or weeks, or hours, depending on the training unit that you're teaching—and it's not training, it's education—what's going to happen is two guys are going to search a trailer where they knew the person went in and didn't come out. And the one's going to say, "Hey, before you open that closet, remember that Jack-in-the-Box!" And you're going to save a life.

Okay, but that's not what we're doing. That's not what we're thinking. Look, the simple algorithm is that either we change the predator or we change you.

Yeah.

So, which one's easier? It's easier to change you. Okay? And we have to understand that there's a natural predator imperative. Their DNA and chemicals force them to respond in a very specific way, which is not unlike you and your lackadaisical attitude out on the street. And you're not paying attention during Christmas makes that meth head want to come up and club you. And apologize with the f-words, but this is a very serious issue.

Let me add that to you. Not only are you willfully becoming a victim. A couple of coppers in Denver arrested a guy. They get a lot of dope, they get guns. This is overnight, Brian. So, they take the gun off the guy, handcuff him, and put him in the backseat. He has a second gun, fired through the front seat, hits a copper in the neck. Okay? So, what are you telling me? That this guy had another gun. That's a fault of training, that's called relaxing too soon. "I didn't anticipate the environment and I certainly never thought that once this guy tagged 'you're it' for Brian—tag 'you're it' just like, 'Bang, bang, you're dead'—I handcuffed you, put you in the backseat, the fight's over." The fight wasn't over for the guy in the backseat. So, what are you going to do? You're going to change the predator or are you going to change your mindset? You know what you could have done? Amnesty. "Hey, listen, I don't want to get shot in the neck while you're handcuffed in the backseat. Can you tell me, do you have another gun? Hey, I apologize, but I'm going to search you again." Do you see what I'm trying to say? All of the strategies that affect your mindset are cheap interventions that will save a life. All the rounds, those are goddamn expensive.

And the thing is, and driving, everything you're talking about is something that that person's likely already been trained in and knows how to do. It's just not applying it properly.

And that's— we didn't make it a cognitive priority.

Well, that's our whole thing, right? We don't go into a place and change the way they do things and have to learn all these new tasks or new processes. It's, "This is how things work, this is how you apply it better." And what you're talking about there is that cognitive flexibility, again, right? It's, "What is my mindset situation?" But, you know, we teach— we're talking about advanced critical thinking skills, which that skill set will help develop that sort of mindset, right? Of looking at things of, one, I have more time than I think I do. Two, I don't necessarily need to make a decision right now. There are probably very, very few situations where that occurs, actually a lot less than people think. You know, it's this, "Well, I've got to make a decision right now. We've got to do something." Do you? Or can you let this play out? Can you take a step back? Can we grab a different angle here and get a different perspective? And, you know, everyone wants to talk about time, but, you know, "Well, we don't have time to do that," or, "We have to do this," or, "This thing's happening." It's like, time is relative, man. And this may be, you're exactly right, a few seconds of your life. Do you want that? Is it worth it? Is it worth it? Because in very, very rare cases it may be, you know, that, but those are so obvious that you have to go running in to do something because that's the only way someone's going to stop killing people. Things are— those situations are so rare, they're noteworthy, and they make movies about them.

Yeah, it's not common. So—

So, I'll give you two cops shot. I know a lot of cops shot. That's also the difference between the executive protection mindset training and reality. Okay, so one copper was shot on Van Dyke. Walked up to a car, had a paper plate. The paper plate looked suspicious in the back window. And, famous last words, tells the guy, "Hey, listen, you're going to be free to go in just a minute as long as this car isn't stolen." Because he thought in his mind, and he verbalized that, he thought the car was stolen because it was a fake plate. And those were things that were happening during that timeframe. So, he went back, looking down on his car. The guy in the driver's seat— I still remember his name and the incident like it was yesterday, we were at a wedding when it happened and got mobilized—walked back and shoots the cop in the head. Okay. Now there you have an instance, an incident where the copper thought, just for a fleeting second, "Hey, listen, this might be a dangerous situation," but came off the gas, no pun intended, mentally, and went back and sat in her car and was, you know, waiting for the computer. And a guy in the car wanted it worse than the copper.

Yeah, give another one. A raid near Eight Mile and Helen. Anybody listening, you know immediately which one I'm talking about. A guy gets arrested. The guy doesn't have any shoes on, doesn't have a shirt on, doesn't have gloves or socks on. Has a pair of sweatpants, if you remember what sweatpants are, that are cut above the knees that are laced with a string, a shoelace-like thing that they're common with sweatpants. Gets arrested, gets searched on the street, gets transported by a transport unit, gets searched at the transport unit, gets to the jail. They search him at the jail. Detective Chris Wooters is the final piece in the puzzle to come out and do the booking and talk to the guy and see if he wants to flip. The guy still handcuffed behind his back, reaches down between his butt cheeks and his nutsack, grabs a gun, shoots Chris Wooters at point-blank range, killing him instantly, and then leans up and shoots himself in the head.

Now, Brian, why am I bringing up those? One, because this talk that we're having triggered. The second thing is, those were situations where because of the environmentals, I calm down, I relax too quickly. And I didn't say, "Hey, I better search this person," because I had three or four. And look, we have words for those. When we teach you that in class, you know how when things happen repeatedly and there's no danger, that it makes you dumber over time. We talk about those principles. But are they talking about those principles in these other training classes? Like, you know, we love our buddy GS, and our buddy GS always talks about shooting. Why? Because he loves shooting and he's a rich guy, he can afford to go shooting all the time. We've got another guy, PEO, that talks about driving, and I respect everything he says about driving because it's not horseshit. He talks about science all the time. There's a few trainers that we know, Brian, that are out there that are teaching the right things at the right time. And there's some others that just keep writing or publishing or sending out messages, and it's total horseshit and it's going to get you killed. Why? Because there's an imperative, there's a psychological, a mental, a physiological, a sociological imperative. And if you're not studying all of those, then you're not going to anticipate the danger. And then it's going to be a crapshoot, and in a crapshoot, first of all, the tie goes to the house. Do you get what I'm trying to say? And the house has better odds than you have. And, Brian, you're going to die because of those last few seconds of your life. You didn't, you didn't spend them on training, you didn't read the right book, you didn't write the right thing. All you Supermen that are out there and Superwomen, like, it's not how much you bench press, it's how you don't get within—

Yeah, and then people listen to the show get that. I mean, that's why they're listening to the show. But a lot of that stuff is necessary that you have to do. Why don't they speak up when they see an injustice?

A copper wrote just before Thanksgiving, I read a great note from the copper, and he goes, "Hey, be a protector," using that exact word, "to those people that can't." So, when you see an old person or when you see a young person or when you see somebody that's checked out and not paying attention, just follow them out to their car, just take that extra second so they're not a victim. Brian, I love that. That's great common sense advice. And I will tell the people that listen to our show, if you're listening to it just to get a pat on the back and get your influx of our f-words and our talking about, you already know. But you're not taking it and going out and doing something about it and fixing training or addressing those injustices, Brian, then I would be sad. You know what I mean? Am I coming across that right?

Well, yeah, if you know it and don't do something, then yeah, yeah, I get what you're saying. You know, but there's a lot of, sort of, not really pushback, but a lot of these incidents again, I think we, you know, a lot of people do a better job of explaining and understanding how these things can occur still because, even with all the training and these books and everything you're just talking about, you can still get yourself and fall into that trap. I mean, a perfect example is me, the one I gave. You know, we walk right into an ambush, and we knew better. Most highly trained unit.

Exactly.

And it takes those— in those moments are what are— this is, this is the limits of human performance that we talk about. Because in those moments, it's like you have to then, what you're talking about with mindset, is be able to in that situation go, "Take that breath," and go, "All right, what are we, what are we doing here? Or what's the right thing to do here? Yeah, this is probably going to suck, and we're going to have to take a different route, and we're going to take more time and it's going to burn more calories. But, do we have to do that right now?" And, yep, and it, that's how you avoid those incidents, right? Constantly having that mindset of what you're talking about is, is, is, well, that's exactly what you're talking about. So, you know, speaking of the external triggers and how, you know, criminals, terrorists, insurgents, I don't care if it's the serial killer, the meth head on the street, how they react. Right? They have those same reactions just sort of pointed in a different direction. Right? So, if I'm the criminal and I see you, Greg, and you're all over me, right? I, I might go somewhere else or I might choose another victim because, you know, you're clearly, you're clearly on me. You're observing.

You're much too alert.

Exactly. And you may be aware, you're aware of your surroundings. And so, those sort of reactions can change. But those can change in the moment, right? And, you know, we've talked about the inevitability before and we brought up examples of it today. But, you know, because of some of the ways we train without the cognitive flexibility, we go, "Oh, here, here it is. This fits the file folder. This matches. It's cognitively close enough to something I was told about or warned about. So, now I must do this." And that's what the problem can be sometimes, meaning, "This is exactly what it is. I need to go and set this chain of events in motion. I may need to start engaging now." And if that's the only way I train versus kind of what you said about the, and it's a memory emotion link about the Jack-in-the-Box, right? "Hey, when you open up that drawer, when you open up that door, it may be." But now if I get that, I go to open that door and go, "You know what? Wait a minute." But yeah, because now I know, I learned the hard way. You know, thankfully, none of the good guys died in that situation where I went, "Hey, when you get that feeling like something might be up, something's probably up." And if it's not good, that's great. But I say, "Listen to something."

Yeah, exactly. So, listen to me, folks, if you can hear my voice or if you can see my gigantic head yelling at you, we profile an anomaly. The reason we don't profile a human being, a person, is because you can't, because there's free will, there's too many alternatives, there's too many things that you don't understand. So, I want you to think back of something that we repeat often where the coppers were executing a daylight search warrant against a pedophile, a search warrant with an arrest warrant for a pedophile, and the coppers that were at the door got gunned down. Why? Because they profiled the person, and when you profile a pedophile, it's rare for the pedophile to share it out with the cops.

Yep.

Am I wrong?

No, no, no, no.

When you're going to that house, listen, you can profile a person, place, or thing. We say it all the time: ruined by a human.

Right.

But what we're talking about is not the person and saying, "Oh, it's a man that's 6'2" and he's 5'4" and he's got an olive skin tone." That's not what we're talking about. That's parlor trick horseshit. What we're talking about is, if you were in this situation, if you're a meth head and you're in the situation where you get caught stealing the TV out of your mom and dad's house, and mom walks in and says, "Here we go again," now what are you going to— Okay, that may turn into a domestic, but it's unlikely to turn into a homicide unless other factors that may trigger it. So, if you see those other things forming, "I cut off my tether," do you get what I'm trying to say? "I'm also having a stolen car running and waiting outside. This is my third strike," or whatever else, now that likelihood meter changes, Brian. That's all I'm saying. Just merely buying a gun and training with a gun and being the best with a gun and buying a concealed holster does not make you safer. What makes you safer is anticipating the danger in your environment and up-armoring your brain against a worthy opponent. And what do I mean by worthy opponent? That person that says, "Not today. Not today." Do you get what I'm saying? Are you ready for that? Because that's what that cougar did. That cougar said, "No, not today, my AO." You know what I'm saying? "You're looking up like a meaty little deer. I'm going to bowl you over." And, you know, thank God that guy and his partner fought for their lives, because if not, it would have a decidedly different outcome. That's what I'm saying.

And I think making that switch, it's almost counterintuitive. In the moment, or it feels or seems that way, especially if it's your job. And same example when I was in the military, with the Medal of Honor one I talked about too, you know, it, but it's our job to go in there. We have to go across this road, we have to go into this village. We have a mission. And although that is true, yes, I think what we're saying is you can still complete your mission. Right? You can still go do what you have to do, and rather than walking into a situation, you can manipulate the situation for a better outcome. And you can do that by changing. Right?

If you— it's very simple. Like, we talk about the ambush, but if you're sitting there waiting for me, Greg, and I'm walking down the street, you know, I have my morning cup of coffee with the dog, and you've been waiting there, and even while you have all of the advantage, right? All of them. But if I stop because I've picked up on something and I cross the street and go a different direction, now I have all the advantage because you weren't expecting that.

Yep. You have to move to gain a new advantage. That's what John Boyd was talking about.

That's exactly right. That's it. It's that.

So, let's talk John Boyd and let's talk Paul Walker. John Boyd anticipated. Paul Walker did not. So, the reason I'm bringing up Paul Walker is Paul Walker is the guy that you see in the Fast and Furious. He was in a bunch of those goddamn films. And I ran into a person recently over the holidays that I was saying, "You know, those people trained for hours to drive those cars." "No, those are called stunt people." "No, I heard they did all— they do a lot, they get trained up, they go to the schools, and they get them as much as they can." And Paul Walker did not. And Paul Walker was a gearhead. They were drivers. I agree with you, but they have jobs, they have day jobs. And go look it up for the people that think that that's a big Hollywood myth, that they go out there and they do all the training. Yeah, they train for an hour at basic training, they train for an hour on a job. A lot of that's definitely changed, but he clearly was not up to the level that he thought he was.

But nobody is.

That's my point. My point is, he got in a car with another guy driving, and the speed limit was 45, and they went 100, and they lost control, and they died. So, what's my— what's my lesson that I'm trying to impart? You think you're a lot bigger a badass than you are. So, the best way to stay in the fight is avoidance. Avoidance is brilliant: time and distance. And then if you get into the fight, you've got to be the baddest junkyard dog on the street and use absolutely everything. So, yes, you must train, but you must be flexible in your training and you must train on a variety of skill sets, including talking your way out of the situation. I mean, I just can't see that absolutely every decision is going to be solved at the end of a gun. And we're now getting to that with society. A lot of people think that, Brian, you just read the Chicago article I sent you about whether the rival gangs or whatever, all those armed robberies back to back. Sooner or later, you, whether you're the best human on the face of the planet, are going to accidentally take a left on that street, and you're going to be right involved when one of those situations is going down. So, what are you going to do? You're going to shoot your way out? You're going to drive your way out? You're going to fight your way out? The idea is having options. And being cognitively flexible means that not only do you have the options, but you've rehearsed some of those, so it's not going to happen to you, so you're not that victim on that day. You know, I just get with the hype.

Yeah.

You know, everybody's a great gun trained expert. Then, at the sight of a rustle, somebody gets shot in the head with the gun that was supposed to be there. Those things happen in our society because we're full of ourselves. That's why stoicism doesn't work. It's because we're more ego-driven, not id-driven. And, folks, you've got to learn, you're going to pay now for good training, or you're going to pay later because you didn't have the training or you took shitty training. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, no, I think having that— you know, it's, it's, it's, sort of like I look at it, ideally, it would be almost a progression, right? I have to learn how to talk my way out of a situation before I should practice that and master that. Before I learn to fight my way out of the situation with my hands, and then before and then I fight my way out of the situation with a weapon or something. You know, the idea is that that's how it should sort of be if I looked at it as sort of some sort of training continuum or a crawl-walk-run. But we kind of don't, we don't do that. We're always showing up with a gun to the fight. We're always showing up with a knife or whatever it is. And so, that's becomes our go-to, which then leads to the inevitability of these situations.

And, you know, you brought up a bunch of stuff where it comes to, you know, the warrior type stuff, which is great for the military, and only your job is not to do that. Like, I, it that, that kind of got carried over into a lot of areas where it, where it definitely, definitely shouldn't. Because it creates a mindset of, "Warriors go to war," right? So, "I'm at war," like, "War on—"

But what do we call that? The War on Drugs, the War on Crime.

Precisely. It's stupid. Like, it's, it's the absolute— the War on Drugs. How's that going for us? What, what does victory look like? Did anyone ever spell that out? You know, nobody is doing that in their training either. And if they don't, then they're failing.

So, New York, this is another example. New York just came up with a thing that said, when the coppers are on the road, if they see homeless people that are in need, they've got a phone number that they can call. And when they call, they can say, "Listen, I have a homeless person that has these needs." Well, that's called social work, and the homeless person has to be in on it. So, if the homeless person's not in on it, they have the right then to have an involuntary commitment. They just changed that. Now, first of all, involuntary anything, Brian, that's going to be welcomed by everyone.

Oh, yeah.

Somewhere now we're putting cops back into, just like they don't want the Supreme Court in your womb, you don't want a copper having to deal with the issue of homeless. That's something that you can legislate, you have to get together and work on that, because what you're doing is you're going to create— you've got another situation where, "I'm not leaving, I'm not going," and now we've got a fight, and some homeless person is going to die, and the copper is going to be up for a homicide charge. Brian, we know, we know better. That's what I'm trying to say. One, you're not as good as you think you are. Two, training changes how you behave in situations, so it's better than education. Three, the best training in the world is training your brain because it's the thing that's going to be with you the entire time, and if it stops, you won't need anything. You know, my example when I was younger, I didn't know that there were other options. Right? I never, never thought that there were. And it, not just because, same thing, like I hadn't been trained that, "Hey, you know what? There's other options available." And I think that's kind of what you're talking about is, is, you know, just playing the game of, "What would I do in this situation?" But if everything that you're training is the, "What would I do?" involves ramming a car, booting a door, or shooting a gun, that's what's going to happen, and you might not win like that.

Do you remember, right now, and they're, they're always going to—

And you, you know, you could do everything right, and they're going to capitalize on one small thing that you had never anticipated because you were so focused on, "This is the, this is the outcome that needs to be." "We're ready for Parabellum now."

We're ready for the Joe Robinson, who I love, shooter tattoo that said, "If you want peace, prepare for war." And I'm telling you, only if you're a warrior in combat, do you get what I'm trying to say, does that apply? Because as a normal human, if you want peace, it's hard, and you have to work at it, and you need to talk it out, and you need time and distance. The corollary doesn't match today's society if you read it on its face. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, because the whole point of the fighting or war, it, there's, there's some other objective behind it. That's the method of gaining whatever the objective is. That's not—

It isn't in Ukraine.

Exactly. The objective isn't the war. Like, it isn't the right. The objective is, "What, what is the outcome I want? What tools do I have available? What am I willing to do to get there?"

Yeah. And isn't that what we were talking about? If diplomacy doesn't— I need to, I need to exercise as much diplomacy as possible before I commit to war. Because when war comes, people die, and it's not always the people you want to die. So—

And it doesn't last the length you want it to, and it doesn't use the resources you think it's going to.

Yeah, because the enemy has a say in it. When you're coming up with that plan, the other person has a say in it too. When Clements walked into that coffee shop in Tacoma, he had a mission, he had a purpose, he had a direction, he had a distance. At that time and place, those cops did not. That is the central— there are predators around you all the time. Almost never will they strike, it's remarkable when they do. But you can be more in tune with your environment and more in tune with your own brain and avoid those situations entirely. What a simple message.

Yeah. So, we covered a few different topics, you know, these external trigger sort of things, that these, these sort of trigger, not events, but like moments. Right? Is, is, you have, well, you have a say in it. Right? I, I might walk into something that I didn't know was going on, but I also have a say. I, I can manipulate the situation. Right? You walk into that, well, let's say, you know, instead of a guy killing a bunch of cops in a coffee shop, they're robbing the place. Like, I have a say in how that goes. Now, it might not be as much to say as a guy with a gun, but as much as I think. Yeah, but I, I, I can choose a number of courses of actions. And those choices are going to fall back, or they're going to come from whatever I, however I prepared. Right? And if I'm, you know, I'm going to fall back on something that I practiced or did before. So, if those options don't involve some sort of way of talking my way out of a situation or leaving the room, I'm not going to do it.

And I sent you one yesterday, buddy, and this is exactly what we're talking about. A couple of people— a guy was shoplifting at a Home Depot or whatever the place was, don't even remember, don't care. And a couple of people got together, concealed carry people, and said, "You're not shoplifting our store, not today!" And the guy ran for it, and they shot at him, then shot at his vehicle. Okay, that's reckless, and it's illegal, and that's not what you have the right to do. And I would ask you this, Brian, if you see a person shoplifting and you decide to get involved with it, do you understand that on that day, at that time, that that person may say, "Not me and not today," and have a knife or a gun? Do you think that you're the only person that's trained in karate or aikido or judo? Do you think that they don't do that kind of training? And I'm not saying be afraid of it. I'm saying support your local police because that's all you've got. Because if it comes down to you and that other person said, "Today I draw the line here, and I'm willing to take your life to get away from this shopping," are you ready? And I don't think you are many times.

If you're between them and the door, that exit, like, you're, you're asking for it. They're not going to, they're, they're not— there's some training, you're likely playing two different end games here. And if you're not willing to go, you know, if it's the thing I always tell people when they ask for different questions like, "Oh, is this something you're willing to die over? Is this important enough for you for you to lose your life over your vehicle, your TV in your house?" If it is, if it is, then then go for it, then dive in, then jump right in there.

So, part of the reason Combat Hunter was called Hunter is because the Jaeger and I were big game guide and elk hunters. And so, they loved that angle, that it was easy enough to profile the behavior of an animal in the wild and go after it and hunt it. And if you didn't know that, folks, go look it up. Okay? So, the idea is, I will tell you about elk hunting, and I will make it easy for you, Brian, because you've never been. I want you to imagine that you have to use all the chess pieces on a chessboard in the way they were designed. So, the rook goes a certain way, the queen goes a certain way, the knight, whatever those are called, and the horse, you get what I'm trying to say? Like, I'm a smart guy, they have to go up one and over two or whatever else. But the elk can come and go as they please from any of the four corners of the board at any time, and they don't have the restriction. They can move five moves, they can move one move, they can go diagonally, they can go in a circle. And the idea is, it gives them the technical and the tactical advantage in this situation. The other thing is, the weather changes. So, just in that evening when that elk comes out to the field, and you think you're perfectly conversant, the barometric pressure changes in the mountains where an elk lives, and now that downdraft, Brian, that's at your face turns into an updraft. They go because they smell you, and they run away.

So, why am I telling you that? I'm telling you that hunting an elk is unpredictable, and people spend their entire lives and a lot of money learning how to do it, and not everybody is successful. So, if you think that you're going to go out there and rent a video and rent some spray for your clothes and buy a gun, do you get what I'm trying to say, and somehow that's going to change the odds, you're full of it. And that's what I'm saying about self-defense and survival and mindsets and warrior training and all these books. The book alone, you know, you can hold the book up, you can hold the Bible up, it ain't going to stop the bullet, buddy. It's your faith and your ability to be flexible that's going to change it.

Did I tell you about the one time I sort of went deer hunting with my buddy?

No, I would love to hear it. Please.

Well, the plan for the day was not to go deer hunting. We were doing other things, mostly involving alcohol. And then we're out on his property, said, "You know, there's usually some deer out there this afternoon. You want to go out there?" And I took his massive hand cannon, a .357, I think it was, or .38, with a scope on it, Greg, right? Scope on it. And we saw one, and I got, and it was onto us right away. So, I had to get down on the prone in this field, and it's about 100-something meters away. And so, it's a weapon I've never even fired before, looking through the scope, laying down, and just cranked off a round towards it. And I think it hit, it hit a branch right near its head, but did not hit the deer, and it took off running. But my, you know, walking up, "Oh yeah, I got this. I'll do this right now," about six beers deep with this hand cannon of a gun. I mean, I was surprised I even got that close to the deer, honestly, with that round. But that's the idea is, is, you know, like it was a, my buddy was starting to get pissed. He goes, "If you actually hit it with this thing in this situation right now, do you know how angry and upset I'm going to be at you?" Because why? Because he goes out there, we're doing everything wrong. He does the real stuff, how you're supposed to do it. And here I come in, you know, visiting from Chicago, going to crank a round off and hit that deer. And but it was, I mean, I was not expecting to actually hit it in that situation. But that kind of goes into your point of it, you can do this. "I can shoot a gun. I know how to do this."

I'm sure. Give me two guys. Give me two guys in recent memory that did it right. And I'm talking of— look, folks, you must understand, this is our profession. We study everything, every news story, every incident. We go back and get the police reports and pour over them. We buy every novel that's written on an incident to read the different perspectives. So, I'll give you Sully and that Texas church shooter guy. Remember that guy's name?

Yeah, yeah. I can't remember his name, but yeah, the guy that shot the guy that stood up and started— Wilson.

Yeah, Wilson. I think that was his name. The guy down in the church in Texas. Yeah, exactly. The First Baptist Church of West Freeway. So, listen to me. In recent memory, those two people were the right guy at the right time. And when I say guy, I don't care about you. This is the right person at the right time, right person at the right time for the right incident. That's so rare, we write books and make movies about it. Just remember that if you're going to be that person, then you need to get up out of the chair and stop listening to us and go do something. You know what I'm saying? You need to spend a little more money on your training. And I hated to bag on that, but Brian, you brought up a couple of novels, books, training videos that are out there that both of us just scoff at and we laugh at, and I can't believe more people aren't raising their hand to object to it. And I get it, I get it. We don't object to fast food or processed food and people get fat. But I'm telling you, there's a movement afoot, and the movement is to call out the posers. And I'm glad for the first time in a long time to see that's occurring.

Yeah, well, I think that's probably a good spot to end on for the day. Anything else to add?

No, it clearly somebody pulled the rug out from Brian, and we're done. So, I agree with that.

I agree with that after your story of drunkenly waving guns at poor defenseless animals.

Well, we weren't just waving them at them, you were firing them. That's right. What's the statute of limitations?

Yeah, I don't know. Well, you know, it was legal at the time, I think. Maybe not the alcohol part, but the rest of the situation, that was private property, you know, whatever. I won't, it wasn't true. I made that up. I just made that up right now. It's not true.

Yeah, it's good. We pissed enough people off today, and hopefully we educated the ones that want to be educated.

Well, I think focusing on the decision-making, cognitive flexibility, and those external triggers, that's the point. And not getting wrapped up in the situation that you get sucked into it. You know, you don't want to get sucked into the abyss. You can, you can glance at it from the outside and leave. You know what I mean? That's, that's the biggest. So simple. How do we, how do we, how do I not get involved in this situation that's going on without— for the hippo. That's the name of this episode, folks. Look out for the hippo. I like it.

For the hippo. Everyone, if you want more, obviously check out our Patreon site, please. There's a lot more videos, video breakdown stuff on there, other discussions that we only like having behind that paywall because it's a good barrier to entry. As is our podcast in general. So, we appreciate everyone listening and thankful, because Thanksgiving just passed, for all of you. And if you enjoy the episode, please share it with your friends, reach out to us with questions. We've had folks that reach out to us before. We've done entire episodes just on the questions that they send us or suggestions for a topic. We'd love to hear that. Just as a reminder, if it's something new or ongoing, we try and we typically don't comment on it unless it's something very obvious, because usually more stuff comes out later, and that's kind of a better way to do it. And no one likes sitting around waiting for investigation, and sorry, but that's how, that's how you actually find out what really happened. It takes time. So, just a reminder, thanks everyone for tuning in and don't forget that training changes behavior.