L.O.G. 207 Tour Protection with Todd Fox

All right, so we're getting started. Kind of a pre-conversation to this that went a little bit longer, so I just hit the record button so I could get you guys to stop talking about each other so much. But thanks for coming on, Todd. We appreciate you being here. Thanks for taking the time.

I appreciate you guys having me, and thanks for the flexibility with my schedule here on the move. It's hard to determine when I'd be at a static location.

Yeah, so I know everyone listening had a brief little intro of Todd in the episode intro. But, you know, Todd's calling in right now, sort of on location in a sense. Well, you're deployed, I guess, doing what you do, which is protection work. And you've had, I mean, you've got such a really, really cool background experience. We'll get into some of it, but I just want to remind everyone in the episode details and put a link to when Todd was on the Ed's Manifesto podcast. He got into his history and everything, and it's so cool. If you are into any sort of martial arts or fighting or anything, you got to listen to that because Todd goes way back in that arena, and it's a really interesting background.

You know, you were in the Marine Corps, but you did a lot of things that kind of weren't — it wasn't a typical Marine Corps path. And I always love running into folks like that because you can still do that stuff. I've had different examples in my military and then protecting career where I kind of got to go do something because either I was there and volunteered for it, or I asked, and someone said, "Yeah, I want to come along." And those experiences are really cool. But why don't you just, for everyone real quick, kind of give us — I know you're not going to talk about exactly who you're working with now and where you're at, but give us a little bit about who you are, what you do in your company so that we can kind of jump into everything from there.

Sure. I'm Todd Fox, I'm from St. Louis. I spent a large chunk of my life in LA or around the Camp Pendleton area. Started a security company at the end of my Marine Corps career. I was already doing some executive protection work down in Mexico, and then I ended up meeting the right people in the entertainment side and got brought on. Then it started to kind of Fibonacci Sequence spiral out, and we grew. We're a small company, pre-COVID about 30 guys, essentially doing 80% entertainment. So our entertainment is heavily music tours, and then we do films on locations.

So, if an actor was going to shoot something in Libya or Syria or Colombia or Brazil, they would hire us to go do the advanced site survey, set up cars, set up jets, set up hotels, set up local security like local national forces, and get all the licensing and basically learn the place inside out and develop a network. So we have an entire structure there, and then after we build it up, we receive them, bring them in, operate with them, and then we tear the system down, and we're gone. So, about 80% film and music, and then 10% executive, 10% governmental.

Okay. Yeah, that's that's part of the reason why I wanted to have you on to talk because, you know, having that, one, you got a mix of experience in there, but, you know, everyone loves hearing about those crazy stories from the road, the bands, the music, the stuff like that. And, you know, it's funny because you being in executive protection, having military background, and then doing stuff all over, you know, everyone wants to, you know, think this it's some sexy thing that you get to do or now, I guess, all you see on social media is people advertising like, you know, you're blowing stuff up and shooting and running a gun. Which is interesting.

Like, I mean, the closest you could do to that was previously doing the high-threat protection stuff for U.S. government, which I think you have some experience, and that's where my experience came from as well. But even then, like the whole point was to not get into those situations. You're trying to avoid that, but you're operating in an active war zone where the military is conducting military area operations, so you're a lot more likely than something you just described. But, you know, I, it, you know, there's trying to get a good feel for someone listening right now to kind of from you to give like, what is the bulk of your work? I mean, you just said going down to do a site survey in advance, that kind of thing. I know there's a ton of coordination involved, I mean, a ton. I'm sure you have detailed checklists of the 300 people you have to check in with everywhere you go just to ensure that vehicle that you hired is actually going to be there at the time and place, just to ensure all these things happen. But that's a lot of the work. And I'm curious like, what are those — what are the common things that you have to do every single place that you go? Like no matter what, there's always going to be these certain headaches or things that you have to address.

Yeah, so if people are listening, right, and they've done something, I won't say conventional, but a more kind of high-threat protective operations environment, they have an infrastructure that supports them. Right? When we do this, we don't have any infrastructure, and so you're literally building your infrastructure. So we're nomadic in a way. So we transition constantly from point to point to point to point. We don't have a forward operating base. We don't have a tactical Operations Command or any type of Command Center, any headquarters. So we're literally building it up and breaking it down, building it up and breaking it down. We're not operating out of a central point. So everything that we do is based on essentially SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) or TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures) that are designed for what it is we're doing, and then comms (communications), and then relationships in a given market, right? People that we can trust, because that's the primary currency that we're trading in.

So for us, just to give you an example, let's say it's a music tour. I'll get a call from either the artist or a management group or an agent, somebody like that, and they'll say, "Hey, we're going to go out and do this thing in three months or six months." And what I would say is, "Okay, tell me a little bit about it." And they'd give me a little background, we'd look at numbers, and we'd agree to it. Then we'd have a sit-down, and they'd say, "What do you need to know?" And we say, "Well, tell me about the demographic. You know, who are they dealing with?" "Okay, we got, you know, 30% male, 70% female. They tend to be in the 15 to 30-year-old range. These are the activities that they do at shows. This is how many people typically show up at airports and hotels and places like that."

Guys, hold on one second. Hey, I'm on a call. That's one thing that's really important for people that don't know this: when you're in a hotel room, especially when you're in a super high-end hotel, they have to respect the Do Not Disturb that's on the door. They don't care because these guys, their pay is related to how many rooms they're cleaning and servicing.

Anyway, so getting back to it. So, basically, what happens is for us, we come in, and we set this thing up post-talking to a management group, and we identify kind of what are the behaviors, what is this person typically do in an average day, whether it's a show day or a non-show day, what are their hobbies, what are their histories, whether it's drinking or drugs, you know, what do we need to worry about? Let's say they have a medical issue. Let's say it's an artist who's married who has girlfriends coming and going non-stop, managing that aspect or private information leaking out. You know, we deal with some that have a foot in the political realm, and whether they're pro-Palestinian, pro-Israeli, or whether they're pro-Ukraine or pro-Russia, and we're managing those aspects. So we're dealing with a lot of different things.

So what we do is set up this infrastructure that allows us to be in this constant state of transition. So we're transitioning from, let's say, an airport to a set of vehicles, to a hotel, to a set of vehicles, to an arena or stadium or some other, you know, live event venue. Transitioning from that point to vehicles, vehicles back to like a presidential palace to do a meeting, vehicles back to an FBO (fixed-base operator) where they're jumping on a private jet and flying out. So we're constantly transitioning. There is no headquarters. So we would set that all up ahead of time, right? So that means that I have to have drivers, I have to have vehicles, I have to have people on the ground, I have to have access, say, to a tarmac at the FBO. I have to know my pilots, know the stewardesses, you know, know what kind of food because now food restrictions are a big thing. So you've got that.

Then I've got to know the people at the hotel. I have to have the floor plans, I have to have the rooming list, I have to have what their security capabilities are, what assets they have in-house, what I need to bring with me. You know, what the law is surrounding that, what their CCTV (closed-circuit television) system can capture, is it internal, is it external, is it a landline, is it IP-based? So you're collecting all this information, creating a plan on the fly, distributing to your team, and then you're carrying it out with the help of local nationals, and then again and again and again. And then they throw you the curveballs from time to time. But most of the job is not running and gunning. Most of the job is planning, it's choreography, it's setting things up. And then it gets into kind of your area, which is when I go into these realms to develop relationships and then watch what's unfolding, look at these clues that these guys are giving away based on their behavior, based on what they're saying, based on their accent. And that, in a nutshell — that really is a nutshell because I could go on for days about what we do — but that is the crux of our job.

You know that, and Brian, I'm glad that you asked that question. I'm glad you get it right up front. Todd, you've been around the game, you're at the top of your game. People know you, people trade you like a playing card and business card because they've trusted you, and the future client can trust you, and that gets a lot of crap out of the way. Nobody wants to start at the bottom and work through nine security guards and, "Do you have your guard card?" and do all this other auditioning. They want to go to people that they know have been established in the business. But there's somebody out there watching right now because they want to be in the business, and most of the stuff they've seen on social media is booting doors and ramming cars and putting, you know, automatic rounds downrange and suppressing with the 203.

So, we can get that right out of the way. When's the last time you threw a flashbang on duty? And the fully automatic 203, how often do you use that during the week to suppress fire outside the hotel? And I think that's valid only because there are some kids that want to get into the industry and think there's fun, sex, big money, drugs, and automatic weapons. Help us tell them that that's not the way this goes.

It's quite the opposite. It's not sexy at all. And ironically, most of the guys I see running around on the internet are shooting and fighting and driving, and they're doing all that, but the reality is that you spend a little time doing that, and if you're doing that, something went horribly wrong.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, even even now, when you think about law enforcement on that side of things, not even on the protective side, but when you actually have a commission to carry this thing out, you know, those guys are not throwing flashbangs the way that we used to back in the day because of the liability associated with that. And when we're in a foreign country, we don't have any legal authority whatsoever. And also, even in the United States, you don't have a national legal authority for security. I can have HR 218 (Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act, or LEOSA), right, and LEOSA can allow me to carry a firearm, but even in some states like California, they require you to have a card in addition to LEOSA if you're carrying out some type of security duties. So, you know, that's that's not what the game is. The game is prevention, and if something goes horribly wrong, that's when guns come out. And, you know, the adage for us has always been the same, which is maximum to the principal, minimum to the threat. Right? Our whole job is getting them offline, to get them out, to evacuate them, and it's not to have a gunfight.

And I can't imagine that. I can't imagine going back to like, for example, when I was going over — the Marine Corps was very kind to me and sent me to Iraq, and it was like, "Do I get a personal security detachment?" And they go, "Yeah, him." And they gave me a guy, and the guy had never been outside of the wire. You know, the guy goes, "Hey, I gotta go qualify with my weapons," and I'm like, "I'm gonna die!" Well, the idea of going to those places, and those are true high-risk threat places, if you got somebody that got you into the [ __ ], you're not going to go back to that person. Whether it's convoy operations or, you know, whether it's force protection or whatever else it is, nobody is going to hire you. And if I've looked at your business card online, like I've read everything that there is to read about you that we know of, right, that the internet will allow us to do and everything. Like, I especially love — and Brian will have it in the notes — on your website, you can go down and see 20 different podcasts that you did with different people who have different backgrounds, and each one of those podcasts is different. It wasn't the same party line where you came on and said the same, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Okay, if I went on there and you were, you know, throwing a flashbang or firing an automatic weapon or running around with your shirt off, I would immediately be disenfranchised and say, "Well, I'm going to go to another vendor," because I have a thing called insurance and I have other people that rely on me, right? And so the only reason we're so adamant about that is there's so many people that want to play the, you know, like play cop and play security, but when it comes right down to it, we know people have been in the industry 30, 35 years and they have none of those experiences. And I say good on them, you know, that that's exactly the way to be. Well, what would you, what would you say to somebody just getting ready to start up? How do they learn? Where do they go?

Well, well, let me let me address kind of what you said for a second, and then we'll talk about where to go. But I've had this conversation before with guys, and I've talked to two or three people about it on podcasts, but the result of perfect security is nothing. So I'm going to do weeks and months, and in some cases, even years of work, grueling work, non-stop, all day, all night, to get a result of nothing, right? And I think people don't understand that very well. You know, that's the result that I'm trying to achieve. And I realize, you know, for people that don't understand how security works, you know, they want some tangible result, and it doesn't, it doesn't pan out that way if you do a good job.

So the idea is I'm not in the fight, the idea is I'm not creating a situation that produces a liability for my client, who might be worth a billion dollars. You know, I am an agent acting on their behalf, and I create an exposure for them every time I do something, so I have to assess that in all of my actions. And me running around, even even talking to people about what kind of gun I have, where I carry my gun, you know, what I do with things, you don't, you will not find that. You will not find that. It's just not something to talk about. Not that I don't love guns, not that I don't love driving and, you know, even even tactics that are fun to do that make no sense tactically, like a J-turn. Yeah, I would never do that. Yeah, I would never be doing that kind of stuff tactically, but that is not how this business works on the, you know, entertainment side. It's not how the executives work, even with the dignitaries. And if you're talking about, you know, Diplomatic Security Service, it's not how they work.

Yeah, so, you know, what people see and hear is sexy, and the job is is not sexy, and I know people don't want to hear that. But back to your second question, Greg, which is, how do they get started? Right? And I think the best way to do that is to go in and essentially intern for somebody. Say, "Hey, I like the way you're doing this. You know, can I assist you? Can I set this up for training? Can I help you in some sort of way? Can I work in the mailroom?" Basically, that's great. And they learn it from the ground up as opposed to coming in and not really knowing [ __ ], and then all of a sudden they're expected to perform. It doesn't work that way. You learn all these little nuanced details at the ground level, and then you build upon that because you understand the intricacies and how those variables fit together to produce a specific outcome in that equation. That's, that's the goal at least for me. I want guys ground up.

You were as proud to put out on display that you wash dishes and that you peeled potatoes as any other skill that you did, and I love that. I also love the fact that you're saying the equation, it should be a zero-sum game because that's martial arts. You study martial arts so you never have to use it. You're at the top of your game so you see things as they unfold and you avoid them rather than have to go in there and start cracking spines. But, but like you said as well, nobody wants to hear that part, and that's a number one thing, I think Brian, when I, Brian and I are on the road, people come up and they go, "I want your job. How do I get it?" And it's like, "Do you have any idea?"

Yeah, how many years, right? They don't, they don't understand what your job is in the first place. I mean, the people that hire me don't know what my job is. Right? They're like, "Make them safe." And, "Okay, so I need all of this information. I need to do these things. I need this funding. I'm going to need these guys on my team." They don't understand what it is. I literally have to tell them what my job is. And it's the same with people that say, "Oh yeah, I want your jobs." "Okay, great. Well, you're not going to be home for four months. You're not going to see any of your friends. You're not going to see your family. You're not going to go anywhere other than where that person you're protecting wants to go. You're not going to do what you want to do. You're not going to eat what you want to eat." So you think it's sexy, but, you know, after usually after about a week of 20-hour days, guys like, "Oh man, this [ __ ] sucks."

Yeah, it's the the day-in, day-out grind of things. And, and, you know, what fascinates me, what interests me in sort of the executive protection world and private security on that side is, you know, it's really fascinating. I know other guys like you or other companies that do all kinds of different work with everything from, you know, companies to high-net-worth clients to different organizations. And like, you know, it's still — it still amazes me that there are people and, you know, organizations that I could, I'm obviously not going to name, but like if I'd say right now, everyone listening would have heard of them, and they have little to no security or have the absolute like worst people running it. And you would surprise — you you're going, "There's no way that company is worth X amount or that organization is worth all this and they pay all their people millions and millions of dollars a year." Like, how do they, and they just don't protect it? And it, it's fascinating to me because there's so many different security companies out there, and there's people that do, you know, they everyone's got their own kind of little area of expertise. Like you seem to have this niche for like a lot of traveling, you know, music acts and stuff like that. Other people have like certain, like, "Okay, I do a lot of high-net-worth clients," or "a lot of people in this one." And that's usually, you know, how you kind of — people kind of, it seems that how they find their way. But what surprises is how little there is out there for some of these — I don't know, like if you could kind of elaborate on anything you've seen. I mean, obviously, we don't want to put anyone out on blast and expose someone, but, but, you know, that would, any, do you see that consistently as well?

Yes, I do. And I would say within my industry, the number of guys that are professional, you can count on one hand, literally. The standard is extremely low, and there is no written standard, right? About 15 years ago, I wrote a book, it was really small, really simple, just to create some general standards for what it is that the job entails and what you need to do and what you need to pack, what you need to know, and how kind of a typical day unfolds. And I would say, you know, that's old because things have changed, but people people don't know it. In this industry, the standard's very low, and because the person hiring you doesn't know what it is you're doing, they assume it's the aesthetic, right? Because it's Hollywood. Again, there's no action consequence in Hollywood. So they look and like, "Oh, well, you're big and you're, you know, ethnic and you're bald and you have a goatee and you have tattoos. Oh, you're great for the job." They just know that outer layer, the aesthetics.

And when you talk about some of the things you mentioned, one of the things that I can tell you, at least on the entertainment side, and in most of the executive side, is that they don't look at indicators regarding that person's moral fiber or any other aspect. For example, the number of background checks that are done, right? The number of credit checks are done in entertainment, it's extremely, extremely rare. What you'll find is word of mouth. "That guy worked for so and so. Hey, yeah, he did a great job for so and so." And they'll bring them on. And, you know, it's not one size fits all because what you have in hip-hop versus what you have in rock versus what you have in country versus a boy band, they're different animals, and they behave differently, and the demographics they're dealing with are different, and the activities at events are different. How those people live is different. And so you just can't replace it with another human and just expect that everything is going to be good. So how they deal with that is through a high turnover. So they're constantly bringing in new people, and eventually what occurs is maybe they find a fit. But in the meantime, they've conditioned that entity, that artist, say, that these guys suck. Every guy we're bringing in sucks. They're for security sucks. And all these guys we're bringing in are all going to be the same. And so there's no time invested to even figure out if that guy is good or not because you expect him to be leaving soon. Yeah.

And so they're super high turnover, not not with our clients, but with the average guy in this side of security.

No, and that's kind of what I've seen too, and people coming and going from the industry or getting in, getting back out, or, or, you know, and you only have a few players that still keep doing it or have done it. And it, it's, it's interesting how that works. And I think some of it is, you know, the people don't realize the cost of, you know, what it costs to really get good security. Like, you know, that that is an industry where you get what you pay for. I mean, 100%, you get what you're absolutely. And we've even worked with clients at like maybe on a corporate side where they'll, they'll like hire, you know, a typical firm to come in and do security, whether they have like the roving, you know, mobile patrol that comes up and someone out there that would, and we're like, "For what you're paying for that, like, you you," we're like, "Why don't you use that and just train the people you have working here on how to see things a little bit differently, how to understand things and look at behavior and maybe take a security posture?" I go, "You're going to get more out of that because they're going to take ownership of it. Then it's their company, you know what I mean? It's their organizations, their people, it's their friends, it's their co-workers." I go, "You're going to get more out of that than you will out of this guy making like minimum wage or just above or or, you know, maybe it's a little bit higher than that in certain cases if they have like they're armed or something and you're going like, you don't really know what you get."

And my other thing too is, if you if you're relying on this, if you're relying on Jack Bauer to come and save the day, you know, I mean, it's it's not going to happen like that. Feels very reactive.

It's it's reactive.

And it's almost you're putting too much on one person or one area, right? You can't, I mean, like you just said, you going with a team of people, you can't have, "Oh, I've got this. I'm the one guy." Well, because you're when you're in the bathroom, that's when the bad thing happens. I mean, it's like there's there's no, there is relying on this one person. And I don't know how how you address that with folks or explain it to him, but like, is there a good way that you've seen where you go, "Hey, look, this is how you have to look at it," and get them to kind of come across the line to pay a lot of money for really good support that's that's on point?

So we end up turning a lot of clients away, is the truth. So what happens is we start talking about what they have, and we'll have a short conversation with them on a Zoom call, and we we have the conversation, and you can you can pick up a vibe pretty quick, you know, based on their demeanor and kind of what they understand about the conversation they're having. And then we'll we'll segue into what our rates are, and usually that closes the door for a lot of them and say, "Okay, well, it's been great talking to you, but, you know, we're not a fit. There's no way we can, you know, provide what we do at that at that price point." And then some will get offers. I would say this year, we've turned away more than ever, because of the way people are doing business, and, you know, we don't want to be associated with certain groups or entities. It's always a challenge with with the entertainment side. But, you know, if if they're going out there and they're getting into these violent altercations on a regular basis, it's not an accident, right? It just keeps happening over and over and over again. And so we'll just say, "Hey, we're not a good fit." But usually it comes down to the money, and so a very shortcut, I would say probably average cost 30 minutes. As soon as we start talking about finance, we'll kind of figure out where we're at and if we're a fit or not. And ironically, when we say, "You know what, I don't think we're a match, you guys can't afford us," they go, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!" Yeah, "We're going to come back to you." And look, like that's a little late in the game for me because they've established kind of what they think the the threshold for entry is, right?

Right. Yeah, sticker shock. The two gating mechanisms you just mentioned are are bane as well — sticker shock and associations with entities that that just don't get what we do. And, you know, one of the things, and and you know this because you've been around — you're a copper, you're a Marine, you're a martial artist, all the things that you would need to objectively look at it. Combat Hunter was a very specific design for the Marine Corps. It was to relentlessly go after and pursue a cunning enemy in their own country or people that were dropped into that country to be snipers, bombers, and and and insider threats. Now, we're not there anymore. So, so the underpinnings of Combat Hunter have changed over the years, and people say, "Well, when I listen to your your podcast and you and Brian talk about, yeah, we're talking about avoidance all the time. We're talking about being able to mitigate something by seeing it and stopping it before it ever occurs." And they're saying, "Yeah, but that's different." Yeah, of course it's different when I have a [ __ ] kinetic war zone. Yeah, see they don't understand the difference, and that's why the stuff that you write and the stuff that you post is so common sense that we found early on a kindred spirit, and I hope you see that as well. So I'm sure you run into that, and with us, it's it's equally as frustrating, but we'd rather say no to work than than work in the wrong arenas.

Absolutely. I agree. With clients, same with team guys. Like, you'll get a guy in on the team, and he said the right things, and kind of in low-stress situations, he's a great guy. But then when you get into some challenging spots, not a great fit. And for us, it's better to cut that out as early as we can identify it, because, you know, trying to kind of keep getting people up to speed, it's no good, or saying yes to the wrong client, it's not worth the time, and it's it ends up being a failure, and we don't want that. You know, I don't want to get midway through and go like, "Hey, we gotta sever ties here, this isn't working." I'd rather figure that out on the front end. If it cost a few dollars, what it saves me in in terms of stress and and, you know, the emotional side of it, it's it's worth it.

Yeah. But you had to see that in law enforcement as well. Here's the interesting perspective for our listeners, our readers, the people that follow us related religiously. They're going to come out who Todd Fox is, they're going to take a look at everything that you've done. When you go into police arenas because of your vast knowledge, you see that a lot of it is smoke and mirrors. There's a lot of parlor tricks, there's a lot of people that aren't up to the standard. They just got the job. And we before when we were talking, we called them oxygen thieves. So you get to see that in a bunch of arenas. You got to see it in DOD (Department of Defense) as a Marine, you got to see it as as a copper, and now for the long time, you get to see it in the industry. So people don't see sometimes that you have to look behind the velvet ropes. You have to, you know, pay no attention to the man behind the velvet curtain. I would assume you're spending a significant portion of your time and a lot of your calories and doing exactly that. Would that be a fair assessment?

It's exactly what it is. I think a lot of times the lessons are crossover, they just have different names or people use different vernacular. But between the Marine Corps and law enforcement, I see it a lot. Like, you know, even when you guys are coming out and you're saying something, it's, it's, "Yes, that's the name of it." Like, I know the feeling, I know that situation. You put a name on them like, "That's it, that's it. Now I got a name for this thing." Or, you know, something to associate it with so I can articulate it to somebody else. But I agree, those lessons are present in in all three realms, and I see certain types of people frequently. Then like, "Oh yeah, I know you from the Marine Corps," meaning you're that type of person in this environment, and you're that type of person over here. And I have guys that are the planners, and I guys that are the doers, and I've got very few that are the planners and doers. So, you know, spreading out task load and stuff like that a lot of times has to do with that personality type.

Yeah, that that plays a a big role, I mean, especially in protection, but but it but it plays a big role in everything. I mean, I remember even doing some of the high-threat stuff for for U.S. government, you know, employees before, and then like you have guys come in and you're like, "Hey, bro, like, you're you're gonna you're gonna be on the counter-assault team. You're you're gonna be we're gonna load you down with ammo and you're gonna be in that armored thing way back there, and we're gonna call your 911 if we need you, but you're absolutely not going anywhere near..."

Yeah, I'm not putting you with the ambassador.

Yeah, yeah. It's it's it's crazy because you you have a guy who would make an asset to some SWAT team somewhere, yeah, and but you don't want to put him anywhere near the ambassador. Just keep that guy away from him, right?

Right.

And it, which is funny, and everyone kind of falls into their different different roles based on that personality. And then who can go be with the advance team, and who could do this? Because you got to be able to talk to people if you're on the advance team, and you really got to be able to set things up. And everyone creates these roles, so it's interesting how all all that that plays into account on just how you build your own team. But, you know, one of the things I did kind of want to ask you is, is how do you take like what you do for a living, what you've done for a long time, and then are there certain things that you then — I mean, I'm I know it's sort of seamless for you, but are there certain things you do in like your personal life day to day that are like principles that you adhere to no matter what, whether it's on the job or here? Like there's certain things I do when it comes to behavior stuff, no matter where I'm going. I was just curious, are there certain things that you do no matter where you're going, whether you're protecting someone or you're or you're by yourself, whatever, that that you just adhere to, you go like, "These are the things that, you know, Todd Fox does all the time because I know, you know, those things will keep me alive or keep me safe."

I pretty much do all the same stuff, I just don't put as much energy into it. But I I do the same stuff. So, I will research before I go somewhere. It can be something as silly as a restaurant that I haven't been to, and it's in the city of St. Louis, and I'm not in the city, and I'm going to go there, and I want to know what's around it. So I'll kind of look at what's around it. I'll look at where I'm going to park because I don't want to park right there because I know shit's going to happen. But then I look at the lighting conditions, I look at the buildings, I look at what's open, what's not open, who the people are that are walking in and out and around. And when I go into that restaurant, I'm also looking for things. Now, I know this sounds crazy, but at the end of the day, I'll look online to see the configuration and the layout so I know where I'm walking, where I'm going. You know, if you're going with with loved ones, they're going to want to go to the bathroom, they're going to want to go to a certain place, certain things are going to happen, and I want to kind of figure it out ahead of time. I like to game plan it quickly. It doesn't take very long, especially if you do this day in and day out.

So I'll look at structures like that and I'll look at what's going on there, and I'll talk to a friend in the, "Hey, have you been to this place?" "Yeah, I went there, it was great." "Okay, do you have any problems? How was it on a Saturday night at 11:00?" And I'll just talk it through and I'll think through all that stuff and do the same thing if I'm going to go get a cup of coffee. The same thing, I'm looking at people in the room, and because we have a lot of downtime when we're working protection details, and because I have to to have FaceTime with a lot of people, you're talking, you're figuring out what they're likely to do in their off-time, what they're likely to have in the way of a political opinion, what they're likely to, you know, all we give all this stuff away based on what we wear and how we talk and how we stand. And I, to be honest, I I like that. I like to play a game with that. So when I'm in a room, I'm trying to figure out who are likely to be my allies and who are likely to be my enemies that I'm going to have to fight. That doesn't stress me out in any sort of way. So I enjoy doing that when I go into a room and I'm looking and I'm scanning and assessing, but not like, "Oh, [ __ ], my shit's about to go down." That's not what I'm I'm feeling. I'm just like, "Oh, I want to know. I want to know what's in my environment. I want to know what can help me. I want to know what can hurt me. You know, I want to know where things are."

And only for — yeah, no, and a lot of what you're talking about too is stuff like, you know, all right, looking up where the restaurant's at, reaching out if you know anyone who went there. Like, I I like how you put that. You kind of figured because you're what you're talking about is, yes, it's from a security standpoint or higher thinking, but that that's also just a good way to go about things. Like, do I really want to go spend my time here? Is this restaurant worth going to? So it's not like additional calories that someone — I mean, a lot of what you describe are things that people, everyone listening to this podcast does. So so it's almost like flipping that light switch on and realizing that you are doing it and and going, "All right, like, well, what else do I need to know? What about the time of day to go there? Should I go there? It's a new restaurant, so it's probably going to be super busy at that peak time. Can we get in there early?" That's also going to help me from a security standpoint because it's not going to be a mad rush if something happens. Like, a lot of it's built in and almost seemingly common sense, but once you get good at really just flipping that switch on, recognizing what you're doing, and then additional planning considerations, man, it becomes autonomic. Like, it becomes you're already thinking about it without actually doing it. So I I wasn't surprised that you kind of like look at it, it's like, "Well, it's the same, it's the same thing whether I'm who, whether who I'm going to dinner with or whatever, we're doing the same process." Right?

Oh, it is. It's just a cost-benefit analysis, and you're in essentially, yeah, the benefit is energy expenditure, right? It's right. Okay, I don't have to waste time or energy on that thing.

But we we conduct interviews everywhere we go constantly. So it doesn't matter whether it's an Uber driver, a restaurant, or at the airport, and we're constantly walking up to people. And many times we film, most times we don't because people get screwed, you know, when they know they're on film. And I'll give you two very quick restaurant analogies. One, Brian and I were in, and the first two meals at this place that we had for lunch on two separate days were very Cajun inspired. So we wanted to look into that, and we asked the person, and the person goes, "Ah, there's nothing to it, it's just the seafood's cheap around here. Hey, you just, you know, get what you get." And so then we finally found the right person. The right person says, "Yeah, this is actually called the Louisiana of the, you know, Northeast. And this is where we come from and all these people were Cajuns at one time," and gave us the real stuff, right? But if we would have just scratched the periphery, we would have been in the [ __ ] and we wouldn't have known what we were talking about.

So Brian and I just a week ago, we were at a place in in Salt Lake City, and so we're having a brown liquor and and talking about the day, and each person has this very specific pin on. So, you know, me, I gotta get my hat in there. "What's with the pin?" And the person said, "Ah, there's nothing to it, it's our name tag." And the names were like Helvetica six, you couldn't read the name if you were standing on a person's chest. And so Brian and I go, "Well, that's clearly [  ]." So we wait till we see a guy that we think is the manager. We hit him up and go, "You're the manager?" And he's like, "Yeah, how did you know?" It's like, "Kind of what we do. What's with the tag?" And he goes, "Wow, you know, for underage drinking, the only people that can sell alcohol are 21 and above, and this is a quick way that we glance and see that, and it meets a standard for for Salt Lake City." And it's like, "Okay, if you never ask the question, you'll never know, and you'll walk away with that knee-jerk at the beginning and it'll become an urban legend." And so we like to cut through the horse [  ] and get right down because the facts are more fun than than any of the stuff that you could likely make up. So I'm sure that you see that everywhere that you go.

You you you're hitting so many things on the head with respect to what we do. One thing that I was never trained to do that I have to do all of the time when I'm traveling to a different country every two days: when I'm asking for information, I have to know who I'm talking to. And this is part of the thing I was talking about, looking at the people, look at how they stand, look at their posture, listen to how they speak, listen to their cadence, their rhythm, their accent, look at where their eyes are going, look at literally how they're moving their hands, right? And then put it into context with respect to where you're at. One and two, what it is you're about to ask them. Because if I'm asking, let's say I have, I have guys, very common things — guys, they're oenophiles, they're really big into wine, and they're really big into specific wines from specific regions in in particular houses. And if I'm going to ask them for a recommendation, that says the hotel, or let's say it's a restaurant, I have to really get it right. I cannot screw that up. Or let's say it's coffee. Now, third-wave coffee is a really big thing, right? And so I, if I'm going to get a third-wave coffee house, I gotta know who I'm talking to. So I'm looking for some hipster kid, right, who's eating avocado toast and, you know, there are these these these variables based on what they're wearing and and how they talk, and those things are indicators for me, "Okay, this guy's recommendation is probably going to be spot on." And if you start talking to them about it and they get very passionate and animated and start talking in nuanced details, like, "Okay, I got the right guy for this," right?

Right.

And so I take his recommendation, I can go research, say, "Yep, this guy was spot on." Whereas, you know, you talk to a local who's not really interested. "Yeah, yeah, just go to Starbucks." That's not going to work for my clients. So we do exactly what you're talking about.

Right. And it's more fun. I think you get a lot out of a trip. First of all, we're very similar in the fact that we stay at the cheapest possible [  ] hotel that's close to the venue that's not on fire, right? And then, you know, we do change our route and change the the rental sleds and all that other stuff, but we only do it when we sincerely have to because the rest of the time it's a pain in the ass. So, you know, every human does the same thing, low caloric intervention. So what we do is we amp up the information gathering so we can make up for those gaps and crappy car or the crappy hotel or those other things. And that makes it fun. And and it also like, people are always saying, "Well, how do you, you know, maintain your level of alertness without being hyper-alert?" Do this because if you're paying attention, it's first of all, people watching is the most fun thing on the planet. And second, doing the research that you're talking about, I'm so glad to hear that that you live by those rules as well. That's fun, but it's also what's going to save your life. Knowing where a fire exit is, asking a person a question like the one place Brian and I were at the elevator in the stairs — and I won't go into detail, but it was, "Hey, why is the elevator in this position?" The person's like, "That [  ] that's where it's always been." "Well, that's not the answer I'm looking for." And going down to the bottom floor and finding out where it exits out into the parking lot, and it's on the wrong side of the building. Those are things you gotta take 10 minutes to do, and if you don't do those kind of things, you may be a victim. And so we love the podcast, we love your views on podcasts. Well, we love the podcast because it gives us an outlet to tell people these common sense, free things you don't have to spend a lot of money and a lot of time doing, but a few minutes here and there can make your life fun and exciting and avoid danger.

Yeah, you guys put out amazing content, and I will say that that is, that's a, it's a rare thing, really, because it's just a lot of [ __ ] that gets pumped out, people like to hear their own voices. Yeah, but what you guys talk about applies to every human, anybody with a brain that's listening and and walks around in the street in a public environment. Especially people like me, who are in transition constantly. It's applicable immediately. You don't have to have some specialized training. That information that you're putting out there gives them tools that increases, I don't want to say increases their chance of survivability because then I'm quoting one of your friends from Detroit. That guy's all over the place. Yeah, thank you. Um, but but no, it's it's good stuff, and I I have downtime with work, and the games kind of keep things fun and keep it interesting and it keeps me tuned into what's going on in my environment. And I do the same thing when I'm fighting. If I'm doing Muay Thai, if I'm doing Jiu-Jitsu, I play with things, and playing with it, it keeps a little lighter. It's not so stressful, you know?

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, to to that end, you alluded to something there that we all have to understand about age. The the idea is the last time that I was in a bona fide police pursuit was 2015. 2002 was the last time I trained intervention driving, and vehicles aren't the same. If I tried to do the thing with the vehicle now that I did then, my vehicle would stall out, and I'd be in the [  ]. The last time I was in a bona fide foot pursuit was with Shelly, and that was in 2018. So you can't look, "I've got a body of being certified in every one of those skills and be at the top of my game." I just didn't do it yesterday. So you guys going out there and saying, "Well, this and that and the school this and that and I've got all this other stuff." We stick to the basics, we stick to what we know. The programs I built are still around, and I do that [  ] every day, so I stay laser-focused. So of course I'm in the game, but I'm not going to get out on the mat and I'm, you know, I'm going to say, "Okay, well, you know, the G C3," yeah, "Okay, well, I read up on that this morning. Let's go now." That's not the way any of this works. And I love that that you said very early on, action consequences. Brian are huge about the consequences. Don't train, see what the consequences are. Keep smoking, see what the consequences are. Drive too fast for conditions and don't use your your blinkers. That's all we are is we're like a a common sense voice from the wilderness. Look, we've got our scar tissue, we learned from this stuff, you can too. But those people that you're talking about and that we see routinely, they're still like, there's a guy that writes a book, and I'm not going to say anything about on coffee table or his book, but he's given the same goddamn [  ] that he was 25 years ago when I saw him speak at Penn and sign a book. You, how can you continue to go backwards and assume that you're making a difference forwards? You know, and and again, another reason for you to be on. Brian is so anal-retentive about who gets on the show and who we interview. That's so true because it's his show, make no mistake about it. Because Greg like, "Oh, we should talk to." I was like, "No, that guy's like!" [Laughter] And I'm like, "But," and he's like, "No, I mean, he's not going to be on a show ever. So stop trying to make such work." And and we laugh and laugh about it because, you know, that's that's the thing that he does. So he goes out, he does the interviews, and, you know, I don't do social media. And the whole reason I don't do social media is I'm a [  ] [  ] sandwich. My entire career was made up of me making mistakes. So every story that I tell in class is true. It's when I did something really, really stupid, and thank God I lived through it, and I'll never do that again, you know? So so you guys, both of you are cut from the same cloth where both of you have these opportunities, and you build yourself up, and you stayed at the top of your game. I'm the other one. I'm, you guys are both Galahads. I'm Goofus. I'm the other kid that walks into the room goes, "Hey, you know." And and all of a sudden, somebody goes, "That was a great move." And I'm like, "Yeah, okay." But I I love the fact that you make it seem just so simple, but you've got your [  ] together. That's from that's from years and years of experience. But well, I want to hit to a couple things. One one thing, what you keep talking about kind of your description about, you know, learning about people and talking to them and watching them and their behavior within the context. And one of those simple things we always tell people is, um, we have like simple taglines that we then talk about for the next couple hours in a course. But the simple tagline is a is a memory motion link, and that's, you know, people teach you how they want to be treated, and they don't, they can't say that with their words, they do that by their actions, what they're wearing, how they carry themselves, all that stuff. So I'm, you know, my big thing is I tell people it's like, all right, what's this person teaching you? What are they, what are they trying to teach you? What are they telling you right now with what they're doing? And then do you get you always, especially if you're security, you can't forget like, hey, you're sometimes the rock in the pond. You jump in there, and like people don't walk up to this restaurant manager and ask them all these questions all the time. So you got you gotta take that into consideration. I'm curious if there's if you've ever had — and I'm kind of putting you on the spot — but like, you know, an experience you probably had several, but something that you could think of that were like you met someone or you were in the situation or you were talking to them and you went like, "This is going to go catastrophically wrong," or like, "This is not going to be good." And I'm curious if you like, and again, like I'm kind of putting you on the spot, but if you have something where you where you where you knew at the time because what we love doing is taking subject matter experts like you with all this experience and going like, you you already said like, you go, all right, this is what we call that. This is what we would articulate that as now going forward, you can say, all right, this is the one I know, so I need to act now. So I was just curious if there's something that you've had.

Yeah, um, on the front end of of my career, I made mistakes, right? And interestingly, listening to Andrew Huberman talk about that helps me kind of understand the science behind that and why you solidify those particular things, particularly with the mistakes, like that's the quickest way to learn. Talking and asking questions and how I frame the question and which person I talk to. In the old days, I would go straight to the head person, start asking them questions and talking to them, and I couldn't give them all the information as to why I was asking the question. So now I'll collect bits and pieces online. I'll go and I'll talk to you, let's say it's a restaurant. I'll talk to a server, I'll talk to a manager, I'll talk to different people. I'll even go in the kitchen in some cases, talk to cooks because they'll give you a different perspective, a different look, and you're just collecting bits and pieces from everybody, right? As opposed to going to one single source and getting their perspective and also freaking them out, like, "Why is this guy asking me all these questions?" I, it's much more valuable, it saves time when you can go to one one point and get that information. But on the front, in particular, I remember in London doing this, and people don't react well unless you frame it or unless it has some type of context for why you're asking. But if I can't tell why, I have a problem, you know, trying to kind of get that out of people is a skill, and if you don't look like you fit there, like if you're going into a three-star Michelin-rated restaurant and you look like a young dumb kid, maybe with a stupid Marine haircut, they're like, "Yeah, you you should be here on here," and now you're asking all these questions, and you can't say, "Yeah, I'm security for Madonna," you know, it's it's hard to do.

So now it's a much different approach, right? You see how busy they are, so now I'm going to go into that place instead of going there at rush hour. I'm going to go into that place when it's not very busy, but not when they're setting up first thing, not when they're having a meeting, not when they're talking about what their their offerings are, and the waiters are learning this. I'm going to go in a little bit early, and I'm going to talk to all of them, but I'm going to explain to them in some type of context why I'm there, why I'm asking that. I'm going to end up getting multiple tables for the client and for for us, and I'm going to talk to them based on how they present themselves to me. So some people are super professional, and you meet that where some people are super casual, and I'll talk to them in a very kind of casual way. Some people need to be respected because they're in a position of authority, and they worked hard to get to that spot in order to be respected, so I can't talk down to them anyway. Other people are super subservient, and I have to talk to them the way they want to be talked to. So adjusting to that for us really pays dividends for all of our guys. All the guys that are that are face guys, all of them are operating the same way. They're collecting information of all these different points, and they're matching the environment they're going into. So even if we're going to go to that three-star Michelin restaurant, we're going to dress up for that. We're not going to wear, you know, shorts and a T-shirt, flip-flops, which would be a bad look. But if we're going to the beach and I don't know if you're near Moyock, North Carolina, and you're going somewhere, you're doing an advanced site survey, and that's the look, then you dress that way when you talk to them. So, you know, we we typically, like you had mentioned, we take what we're given. They're giving us instructions by how they present themselves, by how they're talking to us, by what they're willing to hear, what they're not willing to hear, and we'll play to it. And that's paid dividends for all of my team members because everybody's adjusted to that now. And the the quality of information we're getting, the responses that we're getting, the availability of, I know this sounds really crazy to most people listening, but, you know, we're fighting for a seat assignment, right? Because we want a specific location in the restaurant. I don't want to be where they're popping in and out. I don't want to be next to restrooms. I don't want to be next to a glass window where people are walking by. You know, another thing, picking the waiter, me talking to the management or the owners and talking about, you know, who it's going to be, and, you know, getting some type of buy-in where they're not giving our information to paparazzi, being able to park cars in certain places, whether it's behind the restaurant, on the side of the restaurant, because I don't really want to telegraph. Once we do our drop, I want the vehicles to move. I don't want them staging in place. So these conversations a lot of times change based on not just the people, but the environment, the realm you're in, who you can talk to, what you can say to them. You know, if I'm talking to Arab people who tend to be more subservient, or if I talk to, let's say, an Austrian person who's very precise, I have to adjust to those environments and each market that we go to, and then the personality type in that market, and then the environment within that, right? So we're constantly doing that, that's that's a big part of our job.

And you you, I I like having our listeners kind of hear this from you and your perspective, especially, you know, anything private security, executive protection, outside. And you brought it up earlier in the show, but you you don't have a net. So like, you know, like me, when I was doing, yeah, different high-threat protection for U.S. government, there's there's a whole process behind what we're doing. There's people behind there, there's QRF (Quick Reaction Force). There's if something goes wrong, I hit these buttons on this little thing in this sequence, and they are now tracking that all the way back in Washington D.C., not just in the local theater. Like, we have military ad, like you have all of these things available. Same thing, like if you're police unit, it's like you you have all of these assets, you know, but but when it's you out there in all these different areas all over the world, like, you're on your own. You've got your team, and you've got the willingness of your client to, you know, take your advice and and listen to what you're doing. And so you have all of these external issues, and you've got a lot of internal issues like you talked about, knowing your client sort of earlier and really understanding a little bit about them, and what they're likely going to do, and what do they how do they typically act when they're out in town? What do they, you know, is it? And so knowing all of those things, that that having that that team to rely on because I'm imagining when you're when you're have when you have a team with you, it's pretty small. I mean, how do you how do you determine that? What are the best qualities you you see in in folks that do well, like you said, when it becomes, you know, day, you know, 20 and you haven't had a break, and it's been 12 to 18-hour days every single day, and you haven't had a day off? Like, how do you can you, are you see, seeing as how you have all experience now, can you look at folks when they show up and relatively quickly and go, all right, I think this person might be good or, you know what, maybe that person, maybe not so much?

For the most part, yes. There there's a general formula, right? So if I have a person that has a belief in something, it can be anything, it can be religion, it can be ideology, like it's based on family, whatever it is. They have a strong belief in something, they're vested in something. Generally, if they're a fit person, they haven't let themselves go. Also, the number one factor, I would say, is flexibility. The ability to adjust on the fly because for us that are, you know, planners, we structure, we do analysis, that's how we think, that's how we plan. In this realm, we make two or three or four plans because we know shit's going to change. It always changes, and it changes at the last minute, and I could have spent a week or two weeks or a month working on, and then all of a sudden, you know, this artist has this, you know, random idea, we're going to go over here. And so now that's completely unplanned and worse at the last minute, you know, shuffling to get cars and reservations or whatever it may be. I need guys that are flexible, that are not going to be stuck in that mindset, "No, we did this, we have to." No, you're not in charge. They're in charge. Now you adjust to them, not them adjusting to you. So flexibility is a big thing. And then there's a bit of commiseration that goes on because we constantly get these [  ] sandwiches. So a sense of humor goes a long way if you can laugh about it, whether it's right after it happens or a day after it happens or whatever. But in particular, if you can laugh about it in the moment because you know this, you know what's happening, you know it's going to happen. You can read that person, you can read the situation, you've been there many times, and you're looking at each other laughing, "Yep, this is about to go to [  ]. All right, here we go." And and you jump in. So I would say those things: a strong belief or value system in something. It doesn't have to be one thing. Some level of dedication to maintaining their body, because usually that also is coupled with maintaining their mind. The ability to adjust, to be flexible, and a sense of humor. Those are the things I think are really important for for my guys.

Now that, and that that's awesome. I those are those are great descriptors, and I like how you kind of keep it general, like in a beliefs of something. You know, because I I've seen that same thing, someone who has, you know, and you're kind of talking about, you know, some moral compass in there, because whether it's like a belief in like, "Hey, I do Jiu-Jitsu, this is my thing," but they're super into it and like, you know, because it's not just about you rolling on the mat or fighting, it's it's about everything behind it. It's about the ethos, it's about what you're here to do on this Earth and as a human. I mean, that's deeply what martial arts are about. I mean, you know, you can do it whichever one you want, but there are core set in there where this is about something bigger than you, and I think having that place and time and no like, that's a good team member. Someone who goes like, "There's something bigger here than just me and my goals and what I do." And then like you said, yeah, the physical and mental, you know, leads into that. And and, you know, I, when you talk about being adaptable and, you know, having that sort of call like maybe cognitive agility and, you know, being able to to really, you know, the way you get to do that, I always tell people is by doing all that planning, right? Because if you have a primary, alternate, contingent, emergency plan, if you have primary and alternate routes, if you have all of these backup plans and you plan for all those things, the idea is now you just get to go do your job, and when something happens, you have all of that knowledge to draw on. There there isn't, "Uh oh, [ __ ], what do we do now?" You you have some sort of plan now. Even if you can't fully execute that plan that you rehearsed, it's going to be close enough, and it allows you and so all of that background information, right, all of that planning, that that procedural stuff, is that's the bread and butter to me. Like, that's how you do it. That's that's how you actually get good at it. And and so that's always been been my way of looking at things too, is is that you you've planned so that you don't have to do these things. And then that sense of humor like we've all been there where it's like, "Okay, we're at the primary, that's no good. Alternate, it's no good. Contingent, uh, emergency, we don't even have effort. Looks like we're going to make it up as we go along." And you're you're really not at that point. You're just drawing on all of your experience and the planning. I mean, you're you're still following some sort of protocol. I don't know if you've ever seen anything like that.

Yeah, frequently. And the funny thing is for me, if I have a PACE plan, which is a primary plus three options, right? Um, that makes me calm. And I'll have these guys ask me all the time because I'm around people that don't really believe in accountability. Like, "Oh, you're paranoid." "No, I'm not paranoid at all, actually. I'm just prepared. I have these plans. If something goes wrong, I can be relaxed. I'm going to have a lot of anxiety if I have no plan. I don't have any anxiety when I have a bunch of plans because I know I can go left, I can go right, I can forward, I can go back, right, I can go up, I can go down. I I have options." And so I feel good about that. And that that allows me to have a certain level of confidence that the people that I'm working around can feel. They can feel that. I don't have to say anything. They know also when they come and turn to me like, "Hey, Todd, what do we do about this?" If if the artist is turning to me and asks me that, and every time they ask me, I have an answer for them, they know. And and that's a again, a form of currency.

Amen. Absolutely. I I think confidence and competence are the two aspirational goals everybody in any industry that deals with people, which is every human on the face of the planet, should always strive for. And the only thing I would add to the list that both you and Brian made is don't lie. Because when you go into a venue, when you go into a place, you go into a restaurant or a hotel, and you purport to be something and then they get your credit card and find out that's not you, or they see your business card or somebody goes, "You know who that is?" You have to go back there, and you just [ __ ] on all those people because you thought it was a good idea at the time. And and that's never a good idea. So I I've seen that, and I disabuse people of that daily. Don't lie, just just tell the truth or don't tell them because they'll respect you more for not telling them all the facts that you have to keep behind the velvet ropes, right? But just don't lie.

Yeah, I I go to these same restaurants, I deal with the same limo drivers, I deal with the same handlers and FBOs. I deal with the same people running arenas and stadiums. I see them all the time. And in reality, although they don't pay me, they're equally valuable to my client because they make things happen. And I may have one client that we keep for a year or two or whatever, and another one that I've had for 20 years, and I'm sacrificing these relationships for somebody that's going to be here for a short time. It doesn't make sense. I want to keep these guys for as long as they're working in these realms, these relationships. You know, and even if it's if it's personal, if if one of you guys says, "Hey, do you have somebody in this country?" "Yep, I do. Here, call them." You know, "Oh, it's two o'clock right now in that country." "He doesn't care. Shoot him a note, hit him with WhatsApp. He'll reply to you." You know, "Hey, I need to know the route to this." This guy will, you know, create a live link on WhatsApp, and you can just screen record, and he'll send it to you. You can see everything, or he'll capture a video and send it to you. You know, at two o'clock in the morning, the guys jump in a car doing this thing for you because you've got that buy-in from him based on the way you treat him, the things you've done for him. And, um, you know, I've learned over the years that me bringing a book, me bringing a pin from my my tag team, me bringing something from the Marine Corps, a challenge coin, these things are massive because that's important to certain groups of people or giving them tickets to a concert or giving them access to, you know, seeing a scene filmed in this location. And I know it's a controlled location, I can bring two people in, and I can trust them, and now they're getting access to something they'd never have access to in their life. But that's paying it forward for the future, right? You know, what's happening and you know how valuable they are. So I agree, I I do my best to never lie. I think I would default to what you're talking about, which is omission, just not telling them anything. Um, and I got asked about that recently by Ed, actually. He asked me about that, and I said, you know, "I just fall on my sword and told me truth," and and say, "Look, this is what happened, and I won't do that same thing again if it's a mistake on my part." But with locals, um, those guys are major assets for me and building the Rolodex.

We call that, yeah, and you're doing it every day, and you're operating at the speed of trust, but you have to reciprocate because if you don't, then you're just a user, and people feel that. They smell that, they'll figure it out eventually.

Yeah, right. And you're given the, it's like the Billy Madison example. Remember Adam Sandler calls up Steve Buscemi, he's like, "Hey, man, I was kind of a jerk to you in high school, and I really apologize for that." That he gets it. Yeah, he crosses off and crosses them off the people to kill list. Then he comes up to help them out later in the movie, and he's like, "Man, I'm glad I called that guy." I mean, that's so much of that there that that exciting so many interactions I've had in life where I was like, "Man, I'm glad I was nice to that guy," because they hooked it up. People and and and just being friendly with people is literally they're more likely to do something for you and and and you with them. I mean, there's a shared sort of, uh, you know, you don't don't make those relationships just purely transactional, even if they are, because like you said, you don't know when 18 months, "Oh, what's that restaurant we go to out in Lynchburg where we walk in? We hadn't been there in six months, it's like, 'Hey, guys, you're back!'" And it was like, they knew us immediately, walked us to the table we sat at last time. It felt so good. So it's like the front of the line, better service. And like we didn't ask for any of that or expect that. We were just nice to them and unusual, obviously, two faces.

You just said it, Greg, you, it feels good. And part of the thing is when I'm traveling and I'm moving place to place, yes, I'm going to see them again, yes, I need something, yes, I'll give them something. But it also just makes your day smoother and it makes you feel better as as a human, and it makes the day easier. You can have a shitty day and then have this individual that you have a positive interaction with, and it makes the next interaction with the next person who might not be so nice tolerable.

Absolutely. Yeah, you know, we all we all say platitudes from time to time, even though I hate relying on them, but the, "Be the change," you know, that's it. You are, and when you go somewhere and you're tired and you're smelly and you're shitty and you got the hair trigger and you got the chip on your shoulder, you got to redouble your efforts to be the good guy because everybody else is going to be that [  ]. You know, you know, you're late, the bus stiff and that, and you just can't be that to be a good human. You've got to eat a lot of [  ]. You know, they say a farmer eats a lot of dirt in the in the year, right, when they're out there in the fields. Well, that's the same thing. Part of de-escalation strategy is you gotta smile a lot, you got to be a nice person, but they got to feel it, they got to know that it's genuine, and that you're not just putting on airs. Totally agree with you, Todd, totally.

You just actually made another point. You don't always get to pick how your client behaves to people, and sometimes you have to lay the groundwork. You have to do this preemptive action or activity that offsets what they're about to do, right? You have this host nation or this individual that you're dealing with at a restaurant, at a hotel, at a whatever, and you know that they're going to come in and wreak havoc on the structure that you built, the relationships that you built. You have to grease the skills, and you have to tell them, I I to be honest, I I, uh, I won't say where I'm at or what I'm doing, but I just had this conversation. I had to come clean about some things that are going to happen that aren't going to be nice for them to deal with, and say, "Hey, these things are going to happen. This is the best way for you to approach that particular situation. If you do these things, I'm going to come in, and I'm going to say these things, expect it. And then that's your cue to leave because when I say these words to you, things are about to go bad, so just just leave, just go out, and I'll handle it, don't worry about it." Right? So that's that's another really important thing that no one taught me or trained me on.

Right. Right. And it's the most valuable human skill, right? And and you can't read it in a book, and you can't hear it on a podcast, but that's the gem. Those are the behind-the-scenes things, Todd, that's the that's your legacy, and that's the what you can lead for others to to make it a less anxious or less stressful day. So I love that. I I, you know, those little tidbits are the one, not not the ghost ring sight on your whatever and the high-capacity [ __ ] that we hear. These are human skills, you know, the most important skills in the book.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and well, speaking of speaking of book, I mean, and I don't I don't want to take up too much time. I don't know if you've got something going on right now where you're at. It seems like there's there's a little bit of a shift there in the room. I wasn't sure if like...

Yeah, it was housekeeping again not respecting the Do Not Disturb. Yeah, so as long as it's my room and not the client's room, we're good. But I got I got team members covering me so that we could talk.

I gotcha. Well, um, what you you do have you do have some books, and you got another one coming out soon. So I want to kind of have you kind of plug those and what you do because I know you you sent me the one to look through, and it's like these really, you got you take great photos if those are your if you're the one taking those photos.

Those are my iPhone photos.

Yeah, but they're still great. And and like, uh, and then you've got like maybe a photo and a simple concept and a photo and a simple concept. And like these are great, but one, because that's how humans learn through images, and they can kind of tie that information together to an image. Um, but it's like it's really cool. So so tell us a little bit about what you're you're writing and what you have coming out.

So I've got different books. The first one was a book 15 years ago that was geared toward tour security because everything that I've been trained on, uh, you know, in Moyock, everything I've been trained on even through the corporate side, ASIS kind of stuff, um, none of that FLETC (Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers), all the EP (Executive Protection) or PSD (Personal Security Detachment) type training that I did, it hadn't converted to the music realm. So I wrote a little book and a little instruction on it. It's super simple, super basic, not meant to be enlightening, but really more of a field manual. And then I ended up doing a use-of-force book for an agency that is not public. And then a couple years ago during COVID, I wrote a book called Protection from Humanity, and that basically stuff you guys both know and use all the time, but systems and structures and processes that are used in protective service operations and how people could use these basic simple systems in their day-to-day life to protect their loved ones or their home or their business structure or something like that.

But what I kept getting from people was, "These are field manuals, like where are the pictures? You know, I don't want all this information." So this book that is out now, it's called Protective Perspective, and the reason that I wrote this, or really presented this because I'm not writing much in that book, is to give people that are fans of the music industry or the film industry, um, a look, a peek behind the curtain to see kind of what goes into setting these things up in a day-in, kind of day-out situation. So I had this artist who I had a long relationship with and said, "Hey, I'd really like to stop every once in a while, snap a photo. It'll take 30 seconds." He's like, "Yeah, yeah, do it." He's a fan, you know, he's into firearms, he's into Jiu-Jitsu, he's into driving, he's into all these things, um, you know, living off the land. And so he he gave me a lot of buy-in really early with this project. And so what I tried to do was kind of think LCD (lowest common denominator), and I just reduced it to something really simple. So I take this photo and I'll just give you an example, let's say this this light, this this LED strobe light sitting on a stage, and you've got these other lights and you've got the audio elements and stuff, and we talk about deconfliction. So for part of our critical incident protocol, you know, we need to deconflict with the lights of the show, and we have, let's say, red lights and white lights and yellow lights. And so this LED beacon for critical incident is blue. And so we kind of talk about that. But what it is is one page is a photo and the adjoining page is basically a concept or an idea related to protection. So you get a little bit of the entertainment thing, you see a little bit of what goes on behind the scenes, and you get just just a theory, just a concept, so it's not overwhelming, and I think most people can probably read that book in 30 minutes. So it just gives you a peek behind the curtain, which is part of the title, and I think that's palatable for most people, even if they're not interested in security.

Yeah, and like I said, the photos are incredible. They're really, really cool. You did a great job with them, and they're just like that snapshot in time where like some I somebody actually was like, "Oh man, I've seen that," or, "I've been that before. I know I know where this is going." Or like, and which is cool. And then you have like you said, these are considerations. So I would almost like, it's something, anyone like you said, could read. It's like a coffee table book you have out, and with those photos, but like that's a great one for anyone listening, even if you're not in this industry at all like for your family or you're just thinking about this stuff in general, because it did, no, it's not you're not going to get formal instruction on how to go to security, but guess what? You don't need that if you're just, you know, I mean, unless you're going into that profession, you don't need that. So here are just these simple concepts. You could take one at a time and sort of talk about them and someone or employ them in your daily life of what you're going to do. And those little takeaways, those are just those thinking points that that help in any of those situations. So I I really liked it, and like like I said, the the photos are really cool too. And then, um, you've got, uh, uh, you've got, oh, actually, in two, I gotta remember, follow follow you, it's tour training on Instagram because your stuff on there is really cool, and that is definitely getting some behind-the-scenes kind of like video. And you got cool editing stuff or photos and like a quick like little walk through backstage, but it shows that process of you getting set up for an event. And then you can really see, you can feel the weight of it. Like, "Oh, man, that's a lot of that's a lot of [ __ ] to get to." Like, I watch and I'm just like, "Oh, man, that's a lot." You know, and like you could you could see it, but but it's cool because you do a good job editing it and it's like really it's just entertaining as well. So that that thing. But you I do want to ask you, you got another book coming out too here pretty soon, right?

I do. I want I want to talk about that. I want to address it, though. Yeah, so I had no social media prior to COVID, zero, none, nothing. Um, and and I still the only thing I have is...

Yeah, exactly.

And you know what? I have to say, I don't care for social media. I don't care for the stuff I see for the most part on it, and I I don't really want to be a contributor, but if I want to sell books, I have to go into the system and kind of do this thing. And and not to, um, you know, upset anybody, but I'm literally snapping these videos. So I basically do a quick assessment: what do I have, what can I give away, what's what's interesting? When we're on the move, everything that you see me put out 100% is while we're moving. And I trickle feed it out. So whatever you're seeing now, it's something happened two, three weeks ago, right? Because otherwise I'm giving away hotels and venues and who I'm with and you time it and look at the date, "Oh yeah, he must be with this person." Um, and so we're cutting them out. Like, you don't actually see celebrities on my site, you don't see where we're at or who we're with or what's going on. You just see kind of a snippet of this thing. And then it's literally, and you guys know this, when you're traveling, I'm on a plane. So I've got I've got downtime, and there's nothing for me to assess on a private jet. So I'm there waiting, and to keep my mind going, functioning, and to stay in the realm, I take 10 minutes to create this little short 30-second video, put some music on it, and and just make some adjustments, maybe a color correction or something like that. And then in two weeks, I got a piece of content that I'm going to put out relative to what it is that I'm talking about. So that's that's kind of unfolded that way. But I I'm glad that you see kind of what I'm trying to do there because I think it's lost on a lot of people. If you're into security or protection or military law enforcement kind of stuff, I think you probably kind of get the gist of what I'm doing, where I'm going with it. If you don't, maybe watch some of it and eventually you'll figure out the pattern.

But with respect to the book that's coming out late this summer, that book's called Underpinning, and it's basically about force instruction. So for me, I witnessed a lot of Jiu-Jitsu guys — so I'm a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu, where I was an MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter, I still compete in Jiu-Jitsu, um, you know, I did bare-knuckle karate, all this stuff. It's not new, like I was doing this stuff before anybody had a name for it. And, um, you know, I'm old now, I'm a 50-year-old guy doing this stuff that's a young man's sport. I'm training with guys that are 25-year-old professionals. So, you know, on Monday I'm kicking their ass, on Tuesday I can't show up to practice, Wednesday I come and I'll be lucky if I can survive. Yeah, Thursday and Friday I can't train, Saturday I'm training. It so it's it's me adjusting to that and not wanting to accept, you know, what's happening to my body. But one of the things, one of the trends that I'm seeing in in my realm, in the MMA, martial arts kind of realm of DT (defensive tactics) use of force for law enforcement, now it's become a thing. Like, "Oh, you're a Jiu-Jitsu black belt? Go teach a cop." And there's a big problem with that, and and even my own instructor and a lot of people that I train with and I've worked with for years, they don't agree with me, but they don't agree with me because they don't understand. So I basically wrote this book Underpinning to outline what DT instructors who are not LEOs (law enforcement officers) need to know so that they can actually provide a valuable service to the LEOs. And so it gets into looking at those particular things.

So, you know, when you're talking about use of force, you have to understand the Fourth Amendment, right? And so that's the foundation right there. Like, I'm seizing a person, and so I need to understand that. I need to understand case law, right? Graham versus Connor, right? Tennessee versus Garner. Uh, you have all these Scott versus Henrichs is a great one because it says I don't need to use the least intrusive forced option, which guys start thinking, "Well, if they do this, I can only go one step up," because back in the day, FLETC created this this pyramid model that was an administrative tool.

Yep.

Right? It had nothing to do with anything that was out there. And I'm trying to explain that in very simple terms for guys who aren't LEOs. Then we're looking at, you know, how a state statute works, right? We're looking at what agency policies are, right, general orders for an agency and how that restricts them. We're looking at court of public opinion and what's going on now in law enforcement. So yes, maybe they can do this legally, but it doesn't look good, and it's it's going to cost them at least with their agency, if not with the public. And then we kind of talk about, you know, different things that will affect them and what they're protected under, how they're not protected by certain things. And then we get into different approaches and different systems and mindsets, and then we get into the actual physical part. So if I'm doing Jiu-Jitsu on a soft mat with my buddy and they have other teammates watching us, right, so I'm in a safe spot, in a soft spot, we're doing this thing for mutual benefit. It's very different than if I'm carrying 30 pounds of gear on my waistline, right? I'm at the end of a 12-hour shift, I'm smoked, uh, I'm dealing with someone who wants to kill me, who, by the way, just got out of prison, has been training to kill people the whole time. They're lifting weights and dealing with other violent people. And it's that quick. It's not, "Oh, I see it coming, and here's what's happening," and it's slowly unfolding. It's very fast, and the amount of time that officers are getting to actually train defensive tactics and use of force is minimal because now they're spending time like for me, I have to teach de-escalation, I have to teach duty to intervene, I have to teach all kinds of stuff that in the past, we never taught and people never really focused on. So less and less time in DT, and it's a more volatile world, and people are, I should say, people criminals are more emboldened to take action because there's less of a consequence for them now than there was in the past. Um, and and people are making literal videos on this. So they're going out there and and fighting cops and recording this as, "Hey, this is like a rite of passage. Look at what I did." So we're talking about those aspects. We're talking about things that change, right? So when I have this this gear on, um, you know, I'm looking at making a decision, and now I've got, okay, I've got a taser, and I've got a pistol, and I've got OC spray, and I've got an ASP (expandable baton) or a baton or, uh, some some type of stick, uh, you know, maybe now I've got this silly bolo. Uh, now I've got to kind of cycle through these these options that I have, and that takes time. And the longer that that lasts, right, the the higher the chances are that I'll pick the wrong force option, and I'm thinking about what's happening. All these kind of things kind of come together in this book so that the instructor who's just a BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) or Muay Thai or MMA guy can understand the mindset of a LEO and understand the the variables that he's dealing with in an instant, right? And it's not like fitness like me or you go to the gym and we work out. This is hormonal heart rate. So, you know, we're resting and we're at 60 and all of a sudden we're at 130 beats a minute instantaneously. That's different than you going to the gym and lifting weights and running and doing cardio kickboxing or whatever you do. And these guys don't get it, and they don't understand it, they don't understand how it works. And the cops in turn can't really tell them. They don't know how to articulate, and they respect them, and they want to learn the things that they have, but it doesn't translate easily.

It's a very hard road, and I I see that with a lot of different types of training, especially when it gets into like the application, like you just said, in law enforcement. I see a lot of that with the different shooting stuff where it's like, "Okay, we're going to go to this course by this guy who's in the, you know, Tier One special missions unit." It's like, um, you're lacking a whole lot of context behind these decisions that these guys are making here. This is very, very, very different mission. Like get impressive fire, yeah, we can't, guys, we can't do something. Precision training is good, and the same thing. And you you bring up the perfect example of like the Jiu-Jitsu stuff. It's like, "Okay, we'll just get, you know, get everyone spun up in Jiu-Jitsu." It's like, "Look, that's not an answer. That's not a solution." It's like, "Well, you have to understand how this tool may help you in these circumstances, but you have far more restrictions, and you have all of these other considerations like you just brought up. You have, this is in the United States. People have people have civil liberties, we have a Constitution. Like, you can't violate their their constitutional rights." And so, and that can change in the situation as it progresses and what they do and what you do and then ultimately what you're responsible for. So, yeah, I I think that that's that's really interesting because that bridging that gap sort of thing, like rather than just saying, "Okay, yes, here's the thing we're going to do," it's like, "No, here's the thing we're going to do if it meets this criteria area and can be used in this manner," right? And taking that all into account is huge. So I'm actually interested in in definitely reading that when it comes out too.

Yeah, and you're preaching to the choir, honestly, honestly. And and the great thing is when you're going down the the laundry list of the stuff that's going to be in the book, you know, preaching to the choir, we've been saying that nobody wants to listen. So this is great because Todd, you're respected in the industry, so hopefully somebody will listen to that. It'd be great to have you back on after the book release where we could pick up a couple of lessons, perhaps, and get it back out there.

I'm coming to you guys for lessons. Let's work the other way around. All the stuff that that you guys are talking about is super valuable on the protection side and the law enforcement side. When you when you guys, uh, not even something new, but like you just talking about like, uh, you know, Hick's Law, or you guys talking about Dunning-Kruger effect, or any of these different concepts, they're really a Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Like these things are really important for law enforcement, they're really important for security, they're really important for military to just understand how these things function and how it affects their operations and their daily lives. Um, and and we talk about those things. And, uh, you know, I don't think a lot of guys get to go, but, uh, for example, FSI (Foreign Service Institute) is one of those places that teaches some theory on on use of force and kind of the different sciences behind it. Um, I don't know how big that is, but most agencies don't have enough to send them to that level of training because it's it's expensive. Um, but you guys, the service you're providing for free is massive. So I I would love to be able to come back on and talk to you guys about that because I think it's it's good stuff.

Ideal for us. It's Brian's show, so I can't give you any permission whatsoever. But no, great stuff. And I I would say too, Todd, let's, uh, your schedule's like ours, it's constantly in flux. Let's collaborate on something, let's put something together so we can actually be in the same place at the same time and share some knowledge with some folks. That would be a lot of fun.

You know, I'm going to say it here, I think the space to do that is I'm actually still doing the stuff we're talking about, and you guys are on the frontier with with putting it out there and and really identifying what it is. I think at some point, I should be collecting video from a different a distance in different scenarios and then you guys talking kind of through it because you guys are definitely behind that. So I love it. It'll be very, it'll be fun.

Yeah. But we've already figured out your location because of the declining amount of light. We know which direction you're facing, and we've called a variety of hotels where that's us calling people to get exactly. So that was our probe just so you know.

You know how many final questions showed up showed up at showed up at hotels all over that? Exactly. Looking for you. It's so funny.

I think it would be a blast. I think people would get a lot out of it, Todd. So let's let let's not like that one die on the vine. That would, uh, that would be an honor for me. So so let's do it. Let's let's find a time to actually do that, and we'll we'll put together kind of the ideas and the concepts with the practical application of that.

Yeah, that'd be cool. That'd be very cool.

Yeah, we definitely got to talk offline about doing that. That would be a lot of fun. And, um, so yeah, Todd, one, I appreciate you coming on here, man. This has been a great talk. I could talk to you all along. I'm going to have all the links for all the stuff in the episode details for the folks that are listening, include your website and where they can find the book and everything. And, uh, just to follow you as well, even on Instagram too. If if anyone listening is on there, I'll repost some of your stuff. But it's it's really, it's really cool to see, and it's definitely you're definitely getting behind-the-scenes look. You know, this is from real people out there doing it. So, um, you know, I I really appreciate you coming on, man.

Thank you guys. Thanks for the material you put out, man. That stuff's invaluable, and I would advocate for anybody that works with me to to look at you guys, and I'm sure you guys have heard me talking on other podcasts about you guys, so we want you to keep that up.

By the way, Greg, he likes, he likes his name once in a while. I will do that. I will. Thanks, buddy. Thanks. This is great stuff.

Yeah. Thank you guys. Thanks so much for coming on, man. Everyone listening, thank you for for tuning in. You can always check out more on The Human Behavior Podcast Patreon site, and don't forget to follow us on social media, and don't forget that training changes behavior.