The Softer Side of Violence | IAN STRIMBECK
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Summary
In this episode, I am joined by Marine Corps Veteran Ian Strindbeck to talk about why every man should learn how to harness the darker side of masculinity. We cover so much in this podcast, including harnessing effective verbalization skills, how to get better at predicting human behavior, and how to develop and harness the softer side of violence. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. You embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated. This is who you are, and after all, you can call yourself a man.
Transcript
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Violence isn't a word a lot of people believe should be attributed to men and their responsibilities,
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but we all know that isn't true because we believe that the ability to do violence
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is not only within us, it can be harnessed to keep ourselves and others protected from
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those who wish to do violence to us. Today, I'm joined by Marine Corps veteran Ian Strimbeck
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to talk about why every man should learn how to harness the darker side of masculinity.
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We cover so much in this podcast, including harnessing effective verbalization skills,
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how to get better at predicting human behavior, the power of intuition, and how to use it
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effectively, and how to develop and harness the softer side of violence.
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart
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your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You are not
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easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are.
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This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,
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Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler, and I am the host and the founder
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of this podcast. I want to welcome you to The Order. Man, we've been going for three and a half
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years now, so strong, and it's great to see how much progress and growth and expansion this movement
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is getting and seeing. It's literally spanning the entire planet, and I'm so thankful that you are
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on this journey of recovering, reclaiming, restoring, whatever you want to call it,
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the idea of masculinity and why it's so important in society, probably now more than it ever has been.
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Each and every week, I'm interviewing successful guys, athletes, scholars, New York Times bestselling
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authors, entrepreneurs, any man who is extremely successful. We are extracting their thoughts and ideas
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We also have a Ask Me Anything podcast each and every week that comes out on Wednesdays,
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and we've got the Friday Field Notes where you get to hear some of my thoughts from throughout the week.
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Now, guys, I don't have a whole lot of announcements for you today. I do want to make a very,
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very quick ask right up here, right up front, and that is that you do your part.
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What do I mean by this? Well, each and every week, I'm here. I'm giving you information. I'm
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You can extract so much great information from both me and the guests that I have on,
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leave an iTunes rating review, and again, that goes such a long way in growing what it is we're
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doing here. So jump on, do that, take care of that real quick in a couple of minutes,
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and I do appreciate all of those. Outside of that, guys, if you are interested in connecting
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with us more and learning more about what this is all about, you can go to orderofman.com,
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which is our headquarters. You can join us in our Facebook group. I think we've got just under 49,000
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slash orderofman, and if you want to take it even one step further, you might want to consider joining
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doing more than just talking about what it means to be a man, but going out and applying this
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information and creating battle plans and thriving in business and family and every facet of life.
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You can check that out at orderofman.com slash Iron Council. Now, guys, that's really all the
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announcements that I have for today. I do want to jump right into this one. I'm excited about this
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conversation. It's one that we certainly need to have. My guest today is a veteran of the United
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States Marine Corps. His name is Ian Strindbeck. He reached out a couple of months ago. And as I
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was preparing for this conversation, I was so impressed by his resume as a veteran and warrior,
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not only in the military, but in the executive protection space. I mean, he's taken what he's
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learned on the battlefield and in civilian life, and he now teaches those who want to be better
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protectors of themselves. And of course, also the people that they have a responsibility for.
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This was such a fascinating discussion with an extremely, extremely fascinating man. And I think
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not only are you guys going to enjoy this conversation, but you're going to walk away
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with some information that could potentially save your life. Ian, what's up, brother? Thanks for
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joining me on the show today. Absolutely. I'm completely honored to be on this podcast. And
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again, thank you for having me. Yeah, this is such a critical conversation, which is why I'm looking
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forward to having it. You know, we talk about, and I had mentioned this to you about protect,
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provide, preside. And obviously, with your background and skill set and your previous
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career, this protection component of being a man is seems to have been a pretty integral part of your
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life. And I feel like it's unfortunately a missed concept in today's society, just because obviously
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of how well modern American society is, you know, regardless of what the biased media shows and the
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statistics, we are a fairly safe country. So I feel like just because of how the world is,
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you've kind of forgotten about that key concept, more or less, because a lot of people are
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ignorant to the fact of how the world really is and how violent criminal actors truly act in their
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day to day life. Yeah, it's interesting, because I do get a lot of conversations and questions from
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people about, is masculinity needed anymore? How has it evolved? And how has it changed, considering the
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fact that we are relatively safe, and we live in relatively peaceful times. And I guess I would ask
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you that question is how critical is this in an environment where we're less likely to experience
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violence or some sort of threat to our well being or the well being of the people that we are tasked
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with, with caring for? Well, obviously, it's a completely different context in regards to the
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overall location of where we are, like comparing it to going out, you know, on the streets of Iraq or
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Afghanistan, you know, comparing apples to oranges. And obviously, out there, it's more of a kinetic
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environment, walking around the streets, there being a white American male probably isn't going to go too
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well for you. But in regards to the overall violence here in America, it still does exist. But obviously,
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you're not going to step outside your front door and, you know, step on a potential IED or, you know,
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get into a, you know, a firefight with a large group of militia-esque people. But I still feel that
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regardless of the practicality or the probability, should I say, of having to defend yourself or those
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that you love, as a man, I truly feel that it is a necessary skill. And I don't know if it's about the
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same for you as it is to me, but when you're involved in a fight-type sport, whether you're
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doing boxing or jiu-jitsu or any type of grappling art where you're involved with, you know, being that
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tight and close with somebody that's trying to prevent you from doing that specific move,
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it definitely feels like a part deep down in your soul from eons ago, you know, makes you want to
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become a better man that makes you want to protect, that makes you want to defend and become the victor.
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Unfortunately, with how the world overall is, I feel like it's slowly fading out just because
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in the eyes of the majority, it really isn't quote-unquote a necessary skill.
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When you talk about being in some sort of grappling-like situation, a lot of the guys know I just
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started jiu-jitsu. You've been doing and practicing jiu-jitsu for six years or so. I remember after that
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first class, man, I was exhausted. Like, I was beat up. I was exhausted. I was certainly humbled.
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But at the same time, there was something deep down inside of me that drew me into wanting to go
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again and wanting to be in those situations. And I think what a lot of guys will do is they'll think
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to themselves, if ever I'm in an encounter with a violent situation that I'll miraculously be able
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to handle myself. But it's been said that we don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the
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level of our training. And so there's so much to be said for training, for understanding what violence
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actually looks like, placing yourself in situations that expose you to it to some degree in controlled
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environments. I guess it's kind of like that warrior in a garden type scenario, right? If you'd rather
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have the skills and not need them, then need them and not have them.
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Absolutely. Unfortunately, you know, for a lot of men that are out there in today's society,
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the reason that they don't purposely put themselves in these uncomfortable situations,
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and, you know, it doesn't have to be jujitsu, you know, it can be any type of, you know, combat sport or
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martial art is because they are allowing their their ego, which is very large to, you know, control
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what they actually want to complete in this life. And as you and I know, you know, the life that we
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have on this floating rock is fairly short. And to not understand or to not ever get to that human
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potential of what you're capable of, you know, in my eyes, is just shameful. But again, it comes down
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to people not being humble enough to put themselves in situations where, yeah, as you probably found out,
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there's dudes that are probably half your size that are able to choke you out just because of that
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consistency of going to jujitsu of learning with timing, not necessarily, you know, not necessarily
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strength, just timing and good technique. And that's just, you know, going there day after day,
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week after month, year after year, you know, getting beat up and still coming back for more
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for a specific type of man. It definitely takes that type of individual to want to come back and
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basically pay to get beat up. Yeah, that's true. Because I talk with my father-in-law about some of the
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Spartan races and things that I do. And he's like, why would you pay to go do that? And for me, it's
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it's not necessarily about a return on investment or losing money in these types of things. It's just
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putting myself deliberately in uncomfortable situations. And one of the things that I'm
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most fascinated with, as I begin this exploration into jujitsu is the level of calmness and clarity
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in these guys who have been practicing for years and decades and just how cool and collected they
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are. And yet they have the ability to inflict some real damage on another person. And I think
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there's real value in that because I imagine in a stressful situation, whether it's a natural
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disaster or a violent encounter, that it's very easy to completely go off the rails and lose all sense
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of calmness and collection in the face of those types of situations. I'm sure you'll, you know,
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eventually figure out some point that there'll be days where you're in the office or, you know,
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at your at your job and you'll be totally stressed out and you'll be on the drive to jujitsu and you'll
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be contemplating pulling a U-turn, just going home, you know, just going home and having a cold beer.
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But then when you get there and you end up going through the class and you go through the free
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rolls and you end up going to the parking lot, you know, when it's dark out and you're packing up,
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going home and you'll feel that just complete release of stress. And people who don't understand
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jujitsu or have never, you know, done similar type sports think that that's crazy that we are the most
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calm when we're put in the most stressful situations. And you and I talked about this.
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We've had Colonel Grossman on the podcast and he said how easy it is for people to lose that sense of
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calmness. And that ends up creating a whole different array of situations and potential
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catastrophes in some of these encounters. It's, it's the ability to remain collected
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that will help you get through some sort of situation like this.
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Though the minute that you start more or less freaking out is that it's because you are directly
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relying on your emotion. And the minute that you rely on emotion is when you can very easily die.
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How do you turn and maybe turn your emotions off? Isn't the right word, but how do you
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focus on the skill, focus on the task at hand when your emotions are beginning to cloud some of your
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judgment? I mean, it's a scary situation to find yourself in an active shooter situation or being
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carjacked or mugged or an intruder in your home. I mean, it's very easy for those emotions to take
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over. Absolutely. And it comes down to, in my opinion, by previously putting yourself in those
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uncomfortable positions or uncomfortable situations to become comfortable. Now, obviously I'm not saying
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to go and search out places where you can become a victim of an active shooter or something crazy like
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that. Yeah. I mean, you're not talking about being in dangerous situations. No, no, but,
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but searching out and going to classes or training classes out there that put you in stressful
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situations so that when, and if that time actually comes, you will recognize it prior or you will just
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recognize in general because of the prior training that you had. And, you know, it can't just be you
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go once and then that's it. You know, it's maybe something that you go to annually. If there's a repeat
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instructor or educator in your area that teaches that he comes, you know, to your area once every
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year, then maybe that should be your annual audit, so to speak of your skillset. And yes, it's going
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to cost money and yes, it's going to take time away from your family. But again, if you truly believe
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that this is an important skill and a vital skill for you to learn and in the defense of yourself or
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those that you love, I mean, the answer is simple, but again, for a lot of people, because they believe
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that it quote unquote won't ever happen to me, they just brush it off and kind of just keep pushing
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it off or brushing the dirt underneath the rug as, you know, it's commonly told. I can guarantee you
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that the people out there that unfortunately have been victims of violence, whether that be in the
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alleyway, leaving the bar in the parking garage late at night or in an active shooter situation,
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anything of that nature, I can guarantee you that they didn't walk outside their house that
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morning and said, man, today's gonna be a great day to potentially lose my life. Nobody expects
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that. But because of the training that we can potentially use prior, it's going to set us up
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for success. And like I tell all the students in my classes, like I pray and I hope that I will,
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you know, that they will never be involved in a situation where they actually have to use
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these life or death skills. The term that I use is adopted from my good friend, William
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Maple of April risk consulting. And he uses the term of violent criminal actor instead of just a
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criminal because it more, more or less directly described to the individual they're acting and
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they are a violent criminal. So these people that go out in their day to day, they're nine to five
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job, just like our nine to five job, but they are obviously involving in illegal activity and they want
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just like an apex predator does in the wild. They want the most amount of calories, the least amount
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of effort. So if you are going about your day to day, and you already have these skills prior,
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the amazing thing is that it builds confidence in yourself. And when it comes down to it, when you're
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put in these hairy and deadly and potentially life threatening situations, the confidence in your
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abilities is more or less going to determine whether you're going to be a victim or the victor.
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So by going in your day to day, and if this violent criminal actor happens to cross your path, and they
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see you with your shoulders back with your eyes engaging with the environment around you, and just
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having that just beaming self confidence, they're gonna be like, you know what, that's gonna take way too
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much time, effort and energy for me to get what I want on him. And they're gonna go on to the potential
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next victim just because they don't view you as worth it. Yeah, I mean, I imagine the best form
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of defense is not even getting yourself into that situation. My son and I were down in Las Vegas
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this last weekend, and we were walking down the strip. And it was it was a little emptier where
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we were. And he saw this guy who was apparently homeless, and probably jacked up on drugs. And my
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son said, let's go this way. And he went around and I said, Hey, that's a good job. And he's like,
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why? What do you mean? And I said, Well, number one, you recognize something that was out of place
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that could potentially be a threat. And then number two, you acted on it to get yourself
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out of that situation before it could potentially even turn into a situation. Now granted, I'm sure
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nothing would have happened. But still, the better move is to always be aware and keep yourself from
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being a victim. The terminology that I utilize in my classes adopted by from my good friend Craig
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Douglas of ShivWorks, he uses the term what's called task fixation. And what that means is that
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throughout our day to day, we're in a constant flux of broadening or narrowing of our overall vision,
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depending on what we're doing, whether we're inside of our car, you know, updating our Instagram
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story, or we're looking up, you know, after we're done updating, or we're sitting in our car with our
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eyes down fixated on the air conditioning to get it cool in the car. It's in that constant flux. So
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people always kind of use the old adage of the Cooper color codes, like, you know, being code red,
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like if you're in code red all the time, you will probably an extremely paranoid and stressful person
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to the point where you're not even being productive in life. Exactly. Exactly. And you just have to
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accept the fact that yes, there's going to be some points throughout your day that you are going to
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be vulnerable. It's obviously a double edged sword. By being potentially vulnerable, it probably means
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that you're interacting with your family, you know, with your wife at the restaurant, you don't have
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your, you know, shoulders back to the wall, or, you know, complete glancing around, you're not,
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you know, visually interacting with your wife or your family. But at the same time, by again,
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having that prior training, even if you are potentially ambushed, you know, know what to do
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and know how to react because of that recognition of the prior training that you had.
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Well, and you can switch, I imagine, to different threat levels based on the situation very quickly
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and rapidly too. I think about the, the practice of driving, think about all of the fine motor skills
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and everything that needs to be observed in the act of driving 20, 25 miles an hour. And then when you
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see somebody jump out in front of you, like how quickly you go to alert mode, hit the brake,
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focus on that one individual swerve. If you need to, it's amazing how quickly we can
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transfer from a relative comfort level to, okay, I'm focused, hyper-focused on this. I have a
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threat. I have a situation. I need to identify this and act accordingly.
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And that, again, comes down to us just having an overall intake of information from our surroundings.
00:19:07.580
And that could be as simple as before we open the door to the outside, you know, outside of the,
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of our quote unquote safety bubble of our house, just peeking outside the window before we open the
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door. Because again, that's technically unknown space that we have no idea what what's outside
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there. But, but again, because we've gotten so overall comfortable, a lot of people go through
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the same motions every day. They get up the same time, they go the same route to work, they park at
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the same place, they walk in the same entrance to work every day. They kind of go through this monotonous
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drone-ish type schedule every single day. So they may or may not take in, you know, what your son saw,
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that, that abnormality that was in their flight path, so to speak.
00:19:49.480
Well, and the other thing I've noticed too, is people don't want to appear foolish.
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So it would have been very easy for my son or anybody to say, Oh, this isn't a big deal.
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I'm going to ignore this. I just need to keep doing this. When in all reality,
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we have those intuitions for a reason. We should be willing to look potentially foolish in order to
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protect ourselves and the people that we have a responsibility for.
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It's because as humans, we potentially want to see the best in people. So by us walking around
00:20:18.440
and thinking the worst in people, it's kind of looked as taboo. Like if you probably say that to
00:20:24.680
an average person, like you are looking for the worst in people, they're probably going to think
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that you're a horrible person. I necessarily don't do that, but I am not ignorant of the fact of how
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humans are. I'm not ignorant of the fact that criminals are very good at what they do. That's
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why they're able to engage in that conversation with you on the street and close that distance gap
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because they are, you know, more or less similar to the showman in Vegas with the sleight of hand.
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I don't know if you've ever seen those guys where they're able to basically pickpocket right off your
00:21:01.380
body. It's, it's, it's more or less the same. Obviously they're not necessarily taking things
00:21:05.860
off you and then giving it back to you. They're more or less trying to distract you with verbalization
00:21:09.840
to close that distance, take your mind off the fact that, you know, they're getting closer to you.
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And now by them getting close to you, they have the upper hand in that, you know, less than two arms
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How do you read that though? I mean, let's just take that scenario. You have a potential
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thief or somebody who wants to do violence to you. How do you determine if this is truly a threat
00:21:34.180
or not a threat at all? Or do you treat it all as a threat if it's unknown?
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And again, actually going back to what you brought up early in regards to your intuition,
00:21:42.660
that's probably one of the greatest assets we have as human beings, but unfortunately is a lot of
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times ignored because we don't feel that's necessary. And I've done very minimal research
00:21:54.520
on it myself. A lot of the concluding factors is that it's completely inconclusive in regards to
00:22:01.420
scientists doing research as to why that happens.
00:22:04.740
What? How powerful intuition is or the fact that we try to turn it off?
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The fact that it does exist and how it actually exists because regardless of how or what it happens,
00:22:13.980
it has helped us more or less survive for thousands of years. So if you're going into that bar
00:22:19.460
with your significant other and you just have that quote unquote gut feeling, it's probably there
00:22:23.640
for a reason. Now, obviously, if you're having every single time you go out in public, it probably
00:22:27.560
means that you have anxiety and that needs to be taken care of. But if more or less you're a
00:22:32.280
confident man, you're a confident individual and you go out to just this one area and you're just
00:22:37.460
picking up those quote unquote vibes in the area that you're in, you're looking over to the left and
00:22:42.320
there's college kids drinking in the bar, getting revved up for the game. You look over to your right
00:22:47.000
and there's a couple getting into a fight and you just feel just kind of this buildup in the air
00:22:51.560
and you just feel that have that gut feeling. Probably that time for you to close that your
00:22:55.240
tab and, you know, tell your significant other that it's time to, to, to leave and go somewhere
00:22:59.320
else. A friend of mine, his name's Braxton McCoy. He was in Iraq with me and he talked about this
00:23:03.840
very thing. He was out on a patrol mission, a recruiting mission in Iraq. Did you go to Iraq as
00:23:08.420
well? Yes. I was in the Al-Anbar regions. Oh yeah. Ramadi. That's where I was.
00:23:12.480
I was kind of near the Syrian border. So the Al-Khaim area. Okay. He went out on a recruiting
00:23:18.820
mission and he had done this before probably a dozen or more times. And for whatever reason
00:23:22.880
that day, and I asked him, I said, why that day? And he was able to articulate a few things,
00:23:26.940
but at the end of the day, he didn't really come up with a clear reason, but he knew something was
00:23:32.100
going on. And that was the day that a guy came in with a, with a vest on with ball bearings and
00:23:38.200
basically blew himself up, shredded my friend up, broke both of his legs, broke both of his arms.
00:23:43.340
I mean, years and years of therapy and recovery. And he knew, and he recognized there was something,
00:23:49.660
he didn't know what it was, but there was something off that day. And obviously we know what happened.
00:23:56.820
And unfortunately in that context, obviously you can't tell his team leader, like I have a gut feeling
00:24:00.520
that we shouldn't go in there. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go. I mean, the idea would be that the training
00:24:04.660
would take over and help offset the fact that there's a lot of violence and uncertainty going
00:24:10.320
on here. When it comes back to that original question as to how we can decipher and break
00:24:15.380
that down, that potential unknown that, you know, may be walking up to us on the street just by looking
00:24:21.660
at basic pre-assault cues or heuristic cues that that individual gives off. Some really kind of basic
00:24:28.980
ones are the abnormalities in regards to the environment or the situation that you're in.
00:24:34.060
And I was down in Tennessee teaching a two-day collaborative class with my good buddy,
00:24:38.620
Drew Estill of Bear Solutions. He's a former vet as well. And he owns a training company. I flew
00:24:42.660
down to him. He lives in the Clarksville, Tennessee area. And we taught a two-day pistol class. And we
00:24:47.900
had a couple in the class of male and female. And they came to the class because about, I think it was a
00:24:53.360
month or two prior to the class, they were involved in a home invasion. An individual cut open their
00:24:58.160
screen, came in. The boyfriend had an AR-15 at the ready, obviously scared the guy off.
00:25:04.060
And then again, kind of cursed with bad luck, she messaged us both today and told us that the soft
00:25:11.220
skills, the software skills that we went over in the class potentially saved her life. She was
00:25:15.280
leaving a gym and this individual started trailing her. And it was, you know, Tennessee,
00:25:21.380
90 plus degrees out. He had long pants on, a hoodie on, hood up, shoulders forward, you know,
00:25:27.160
hiding his face, just giving off again, those bad vibes, giving off those heuristic cues that he's
00:25:31.880
potential predator, shoulders forward, hiding his face, the abnormality being that he has clothing
00:25:37.200
on that doesn't fit in the exact environment that he's in. She called her boyfriend over.
00:25:42.780
Obviously, the potential aggressor, that unknown, saw that it was too much to risk on his end of
00:25:49.020
things. It was too much work for him. So he eventually bailed off and went somewhere else. But just simple
00:25:54.800
things like that, you know, her letting that potential unknown know that she sees him, that
00:26:01.100
she knows what's going on, that she's not going to be a victim, could have potentially startled him
00:26:05.220
off originally. She may or may not have even had to call her boyfriend over for assistance. But,
00:26:11.120
you know, thankfully, she did either way. Again, for the most part, most average violent criminal
00:26:16.180
actors don't want to put in any extra effort. They want, again, majority wise, a materialistic predator.
00:26:22.280
So jewelry, keys to your car, money, things that they can take from you. Obviously, the abnormality
00:26:29.640
to that or the one that's really difficult to pick up on are those sociopathic predators. They show no
00:26:36.620
emotion. They look just like you and I. They don't give off those heuristic cues, those pre-assault
00:26:42.680
cues. Again, they know what they're doing. They're psychologically off. Those are very difficult to
00:26:48.260
find. But the average person that's going to approach you on the street, the panhandler that may, you
00:26:52.780
know, pull out a weapon, they usually and again, I'm not going to say absolutes because absolutes is
00:26:57.880
pigeonholing yourself. But for the most part, they do give off those very, quote unquote, loud pre-assault
00:27:05.860
cues. And, you know, basically, I go over four of them, four basic ones. Before we get into that, I want
00:27:11.860
to ask because I'm a little confused why you call them violent criminal actors. Like to me, I hear
00:27:16.780
actors and I think that could potentially mean they're just putting on a show. But I mean, these
00:27:21.160
are serious stakes. I'm just trying to wrap my head around what you mean by that. This was a term
00:27:25.060
originally defined by my good friend, William April. He was in law enforcement as well as he has,
00:27:29.900
I'm pretty sure, a master's degree in psychology. So he goes around the country basically teaching these
00:27:34.480
specific soft skills. And the reason that he uses this specific terminology is to define exactly
00:27:41.560
what they're doing. Obviously, they are criminals because they aren't following the law. But more
00:27:47.020
or less, they use the word actors because they are acting out a specific role. They're not going to
00:27:52.400
come to me like, hey, I'm a criminal, I'm going to rob you. They're trying to use some type of ruse to
00:27:57.940
again, close that distance. Hey, man, do you have time? Do you have an extra cigarette? Do you know how to
00:28:02.780
get to XYZ? Can you help me out? My car just broke down. They're using some type of acting in order to
00:28:10.680
bring your threat level down, to calm you down, in order for them to snake their way in, more or less.
00:28:17.800
Interesting. Yeah, that's a challenge because human nature, I believe that the majority of us
00:28:23.500
are good, are inherently good. We want to do right. We want to do good. We want to be
00:28:27.980
compassionate and help other people. And if a guy said, hey, my car's broke down, I would naturally,
00:28:33.220
although I may or may not help him, I would naturally be more inclined to help an individual
00:28:38.180
under distress or in some sort of situation that I was capable of helping them with. So I could see,
00:28:45.960
I think this is why the four cues that you're going to go through are so critical because you
00:28:49.300
can start to read and see through some of this. And that's fine. You know, if you want to go help
00:28:54.000
somebody out, you know, if there is some type of, you know, car accident down the road, but
00:28:57.520
don't allow them to follow behind you because the minute that you give somebody's back, just like
00:29:03.820
in jujitsu, as we all know, it's all down South from there. So if you want to go help them out,
00:29:08.020
let them lead, let them be the ones in front of you so that you have control over the situation.
00:29:12.540
Last thing you want to do is give up that dominant position, more or less. You're the one leading and
00:29:18.420
now they're behind you and have complete dominance and control over the situation.
00:29:21.980
Yeah, that makes sense. I was, when I was down in Vegas, my son and I were at the gas station and
00:29:26.140
somebody came up and said, Hey, um, could we have a few dollars or something for food or whatever?
00:29:31.900
And I said, well, what is it that you're looking for? And he says, Oh, a burger. I'm like, well,
00:29:35.660
I'm not going anywhere. I'm here. So if you want to go into the gas station and pick a sandwich out,
00:29:41.320
I can do that. And so he went inside, he picked a sandwich out, of course, saw him the whole time.
00:29:46.580
Like you're talking about paid for the sandwich, let him be on his way. And we were right there,
00:29:50.840
public space. It was under my set of rules and my parameters, not his genuinely. I think the guy
00:29:56.600
just wanted a sandwich. So it worked out. Okay. Just really basic stuff like that. And you haven't even
00:30:01.820
heard my conversation regards as context, but to you, it more or less came naturally. You knew
00:30:06.560
not to just be like, Oh yeah, just, you know, come right in right behind me and just, you know,
00:30:10.820
take my back and let me take my wallet out in front of you. And let me, yeah, exactly. And again,
00:30:15.080
some people just don't know that in it and it's, you know, not really their fault. They just
00:30:20.760
have a different perception on the world. Well, I think they haven't been exposed to it to any degree.
00:30:27.560
And so maybe it's a little bit of ignorance, certainly a bit of idealism in that the world
00:30:34.840
is better maybe than it truly is at times. And, and it could put yourself in a real dangerous
00:30:39.920
situation. It also comes down to, you know, basically your lifestyle as to how you grew up
00:30:45.820
and where you grew up as a kid. I grew up in the city and it had its good and its bad part,
00:30:50.920
just like any other type of major city. So you kind of saw the normal interaction or the,
00:30:57.680
or the normalcy of day-to-day criminal interaction, drug deals, the, the weapons going in and out of
00:31:04.300
trunks. Like that's a very normal thing in those urban areas of the city for somebody that grew up
00:31:10.940
in the country. They again, don't have those quote unquote street smarts. A lot of people that do
00:31:17.000
grow up in the city kind of have that kind of born in some, not naturally, but just as a child,
00:31:21.600
you grow up and you see that and you recognize and you kind of store it in your data bank for later.
00:31:26.080
And it's there. Some people who grew up in the country, like where I live now, I live in a town
00:31:32.500
of, you know, 430 people with no work in traffic lights, one post office, one village store and no
00:31:37.920
police station. The crime rate here is like negative 4%. Like it just doesn't happen. To expect
00:31:43.180
somebody that grew up here to go to the city and have not regular, but those notions of
00:31:49.880
panhandlers like you and I have, it just may or may not be there because again, they've never
00:31:55.160
experienced it before. I keep coming back to this thing that I think one of the greatest dangers to
00:32:00.540
ourselves, especially in the context of this conversation is this outrage culture that we
00:32:06.140
live in. I mean, if heaven forbid that you look at somebody and classify them or categorize them
00:32:12.860
as a potential threat and treat it that way, and then you're going to get ridiculed and,
00:32:17.000
and just completely beat up over, Oh, you're judgmental. And how could you be like this?
00:32:22.900
And how could you be that way when all you're trying to do is keep yourself safe and protected?
00:32:28.380
Yeah. And, and a lot of people have, you know, unfortunately negative connotation when it comes
00:32:33.560
to the term profiling, um, for obvious reasons. But the reality is, is that profiling in itself
00:32:41.560
can potentially keep you alive just because of those, again, those abnormalities that are
00:32:49.360
standing out to you that aren't normally there. If you go to the same bar or restaurant or location
00:32:56.160
every day after work, every Friday, or just a regular place that you interact with by yourself or with your
00:33:01.380
family and something just stands out to you like a sore thumb, then it's not necessarily profiling.
00:33:06.920
It's just setting off a signal to yourself that just something is not right. And then it comes back
00:33:12.960
to having that, that gut feeling that we talked about earlier. And you've got to listen to it. You've
00:33:18.340
got to listen to it and respond to that. And from my perspective, more than you're worrying about
00:33:26.040
the perception of other people. Yep. And again, because of what I, with the society that we're in,
00:33:32.640
we're worried too much about what people think of us, the opinions of others, especially in a
00:33:37.540
potentially life-threatening situation, we're going to be worried about what people think of us
00:33:41.720
by dealing with, um, you know, a certain individual that may or may not is regularly designed to be
00:33:48.160
there or is supposed to be there. And I think there's ways to be tactful about it too, though,
00:33:52.800
right? I mean, well, for example, my son, that, that scenario I gave earlier, the tactful thing
00:33:57.120
was we just went a different route. Like it wasn't blatantly obvious. It was just, Hey,
00:34:02.160
this is our course of action. Here's how we're going to respond to this. And we're going to do
00:34:05.700
it low profile and make a course correction. And then all will be fine. And it wasn't like we,
00:34:10.300
we, we pointed him out or we called the cops on that individual. It was just a very simple
00:34:14.780
change in the way that we were walking. The same concept can be applied to that person that's
00:34:19.960
approaching you on the street that you recognize them, you know, before they are, you know, in your
00:34:26.020
personal space, that person that is approaching you on the street could very well be asking for
00:34:31.480
a cigarette or the time, but by simply just ask them just to hold up your again, set yourself for
00:34:37.040
success. You're not being rude. You're not calling them out. You're not screaming at them to, you know,
00:34:41.300
tell them, tell them to stay where they are. You're being very tactful about the situation,
00:34:45.660
but also very more or less dominant in regards to what, what asking what they want or to telling
00:34:52.560
them what to do. Cause a lot of times somebody will approach people on the street. And then I've
00:34:56.440
seen it multiple times where somebody be like, Hey man. And then the person that's being approached
00:35:01.740
is like, yeah, how can I help you? And by inadvertently saying, how can I help you? You
00:35:06.800
are allowing them to enter that space. Right. You're inviting them in. Exactly. And again,
00:35:12.900
because we, because we don't think about it because, you know, we don't think about that
00:35:16.320
person that's approaching us could very well, pull out a knife, pull out a gun or cause injury
00:35:20.700
to us. But again, by just telling them to stay where they're at politely and by, you know,
00:35:25.560
potentially asking them what they want or, you know, providing them if it's, you know, obviously
00:35:30.880
not money, you know, if you do want to give money, cool, all more power to you. But if it's something
00:35:34.860
simple like, um, the time or how to get somewhere, you can definitely give that those directions
00:35:40.640
or that time from a good positional space. There was a well-known doorman in the UK back
00:35:48.000
in the eighties. His name was Jeff Thompson, G E O F F Thompson. Um, he's written a bunch
00:35:52.920
of books, very well-known self-defense teacher. One of his best books is called the 10 second
00:35:58.080
fighter. It's only about 90 pages, really quick read. And it basically goes into those potential
00:36:03.040
pre-threat cues and how to position your hands. So he uses a term called a high fence or a high
00:36:10.100
compressed fence. It's basically when you're talking to somebody, you're keeping your arms
00:36:15.140
high and compressed to your body. So the elbows are in, you know, to your rib cage and your palms
00:36:20.460
are facing outwards. Um, so regardless if there's a language barrier, if there's some type of mental
00:36:25.600
deficiency, so if there's a mental handicap, a lot of people that have some type of autism or
00:36:31.660
Asperger's don't have that spatial awareness to their surroundings. Or if they're deaf by having
00:36:37.460
those palms outwards, everybody understands what that means. It means that I cause no harm or I'm
00:36:41.780
going to cause no harm and just hold up where you're at. And also obviously gives no threat to
00:36:47.620
that person. So you're not talking to them with closed fits. Like you're about to, you know, box
00:36:51.080
them out in the face by also having your hands recoiled to your body. They are just that they're
00:36:56.600
recoiled. So if you do potentially need to throw some type of offensive strike, it's already there ready
00:37:02.400
to go. But by having, again, those palms outwards, you can talk to them by moving your hands. I like
00:37:07.440
to compare it as the Italian hands, how people talk with their hands similar to that. Sure. Yeah.
00:37:13.660
Yeah. By simply doing that, you're not causing fear in that individual to potentially escalate
00:37:19.660
the situation, especially when you're dealing with a lot of drunk guys at bars, when you're
00:37:24.600
closing out for the night, last thing you want to do is escalate the situation. Right. I mean,
00:37:27.600
mental instability, frankly. Yes. Yes. And the last thing you want to do is escalate the situation.
00:37:32.140
So by just by talking to them, you know, tactfully, respectfully, and just by keeping those, you
00:37:37.500
know, palms outward and just by talking to them, just very simply like that, you could very easily
00:37:44.040
walk away from a situation, you know, without any type of injury or deescalate situation if the person
00:37:49.560
came to you with potential violence already. And I think this is really important. We talk about
00:37:54.520
this. We're going to get back to the four Qs, I promise. But I think it's important that we talk
00:37:59.500
about the priority in which you ought to engage or disengage. I think the first step is to
00:38:05.820
disengage. I think that is the ideal situation. But from my perspective, I think a lot of men think
00:38:10.920
that's retreating or that's weakness and showing weakness. Talk to me about that.
00:38:16.300
Obviously, if you recognize a person early enough that, again, is giving off that bad vibe and you
00:38:22.400
very easily just cross the street or did what your son did, avoid the person entirely by going a
00:38:28.160
different route. Easy day. I don't have to deal with any type of verbalization. I don't have to
00:38:32.540
talk to the person because, again, you recognize that person early enough. Although that's the
00:38:36.340
best case scenario. Worst case scenario is obviously this person is engaging with you. You bumped into
00:38:42.760
him. He's having a bad day. You looked at him wrong. Whatever the situation is, either way, you're now
00:38:47.660
engaged in this close distance with this individual, calling you profanity words, whatever it is.
00:38:54.160
And yes, for a lot of men out there, they do have that temper. And a lot of times I'll hear people
00:39:03.300
in my travels cough up their violence in their past to their temper. Oh, yeah. Well, you know,
00:39:09.540
I really bad temper or yeah, I would never, you know, I, this guy was talking smack to me. So,
00:39:14.180
you know, we got, we got in a fistfight, whatever it is. And, you know, whatever it's their personal
00:39:19.140
choice, if that's what they want to do, that's fine. But for me, I have absolutely no issue with
00:39:24.680
condoning what they're calling me. Sure. If they have an issue like, Hey man, you're a piece of
00:39:29.500
shit. You're just so fucking ugly, whatever it is. Yeah. You know what, dude, I'm a real piece of
00:39:33.280
shit. You're right. You're right. You are so much stronger than me. You are so much bigger than me.
00:39:36.760
You are completely right, dude. I am so sorry for pumping in you earlier. Do you, do you want me to get
00:39:41.040
that beer for you? Something as simple as that. Okay. But again, because people, a lot of men have so much
00:39:47.280
ego that they don't want to drop that and let them be the non-dominant one, the, the passive
00:39:53.880
individual, they get into this, you know, head-butting match where they're going to try to
00:39:58.700
see who's the winner. As you and I know, that potentially doesn't end up very well, could
00:40:03.600
potentially end up with both of you in jail, one of you in jail, somebody with a broken something.
00:40:08.780
However it is, your night isn't going to go as you expected just because you didn't, you allowed your
00:40:14.200
ego to get in the way of things. It's a hard line to stay behind for a lot of guys, you know,
00:40:20.420
especially for people who have a lot of pride in themselves. And again, because their potential
00:40:25.840
upbringing with their family, that may have been a thing that that was instilled to them
00:40:29.860
since they were a child. Like, don't let anybody call you that, or don't let anybody ever do this
00:40:35.060
to you, this, that, or the other thing. So it's, it's very difficult sometimes for men to just be
00:40:41.600
able to kind of just brush to the side or just let it fall off their shoulder. But for me, I can tell
00:40:46.540
you firsthand, I have absolutely no issue with that. At the end of the day, I want to go home
00:40:50.140
to my wife and my kids. I don't want to end up in a jail or in a hospital or in court for a number
00:40:55.820
of years. Or the morgue. Or the morgue. Absolutely. That's that, you know, worst case scenario right
00:41:01.560
there. Similar to an example that is, you know, before I moved up north about four years ago, I was
00:41:07.440
working at a bar. Two, two days before that I was done with the job and I was moving up here
00:41:12.300
and we were closing out for the night. And, you know, a little stereotypical Italian kid from
00:41:17.880
North End of Boston had too many Bud Lights to drink, getting mouthy. We're pushing him out the
00:41:22.160
door. We get him outside and he starts banging on the glass door. And obviously we don't want him to
00:41:26.560
injure our property or injure himself. God forbid he blasts his fist through the glass and ends up
00:41:31.320
cutting himself. So as we open the door, he starts reaching for his waistline. So one of the other
00:41:35.880
guys I started working with, just very quickly, wasn't like a huge haymaker. He already has hands
00:41:40.980
in front of his body. So he didn't really have a lot of power behind his punch, but very quickly
00:41:46.320
just kind of pushed him off. But because of how inebriated the guy was, he tripped over himself,
00:41:53.280
smashes back of his head off his pavement. And then of course, ended up with that, you know,
00:41:57.340
the whole infamous, you know, world star hip hop circle. People are, you know, filming on their cell
00:42:01.700
phones. People are screaming for police. And even a year after, you know, when I first opened up
00:42:07.360
here, I was having to go all the way back into Boston to deal with the court just for me being
00:42:12.500
a witness there. I wasn't personally involved with it, but because I was there with him when it
00:42:16.980
happened, I was a witness in the case. So that means I had to deal with that. So people really
00:42:20.640
want, don't really take a lot of men don't take that into consideration in the moment because again,
00:42:25.200
they're basing their actions solely on their emotion. Gents, we're winding down on the last call
00:42:31.940
for the inaugural order of man legacy experience. What is this? This is a three and a half day
00:42:37.760
event, September 20th through the 23rd, 2018. It's going to be held in the mountains of Southern
00:42:42.900
Utah, my home area, and it's designed to help you usher your son into manhood. That's the bottom
00:42:49.340
line. I believe that one of our primary responsibilities as men is to help our young men understand
00:42:54.900
our valuable role in society. I mean, too often our boys are being raised by exclusively women
00:43:01.380
in an overly effeminate society that asked them to put away anything that makes them male. We
00:43:07.580
believe a little differently and believe that it's our job to encourage masculinity and to help them
00:43:12.580
understand how to use it effectively. And that's what the legacy experience is all about. If you have
00:43:18.040
a son between the ages of eight to 15, and you want the tools, guidance, and the framework for
00:43:23.500
helping him become a man by working through a rite of passage together, then the legacy experience
00:43:29.900
is for you. You got to do it quickly. We only have two spots remaining, just two. And I'm probably not
00:43:34.760
going to have to mention this any more than maybe once or twice, if that. So if you are interested,
00:43:39.460
head to orderofman.com slash legacy. Again, that's orderofman.com slash legacy to learn more about it and
00:43:47.520
lock in your spot. Again, September 20th through the 23rd, 2018 orderofman.com slash legacy. With
00:43:54.920
that said, guys, let's jump right back into the conversation with Ian. I want to get again to the
00:44:00.520
four Qs, but before I do, is there anything that guys can do from an appearance perspective?
00:44:05.140
Obviously the things that come to mind for me is being strong, physically fit, just by looking at
00:44:10.440
you, the guy's physically fit. That's probably a deterrent. Quite honestly, I believe my beard is a
00:44:15.360
deterrent because it says, here's a wall, like, leave me alone. I'm not interested in having
00:44:19.420
engagements that I'm not interested in having. Yeah. So from my personal experience, you know,
00:44:24.720
agreeing with you in regards to something as simply as having facial hair, regardless if that
00:44:29.960
person approaching you realizes or not, it's a subconscious processing in our brain that that
00:44:36.200
guy is thinking, okay, that that guy is mature. He's older, may potentially be stronger. Another one is
00:44:42.380
tattoos, especially if they're in areas of the body that they show or in areas that, you know,
00:44:49.260
hurt. You can very quickly know that that person doesn't care what other people think of him,
00:44:53.660
or he has a high pain tolerance. Yeah. I would never mess with a guy with a face tattoo.
00:44:58.980
Something to me is like, this guy has a high tolerance for pain, or he's, he thinks on a
00:45:04.820
different level, we'll say than I do. And definitely lifting as well. Um, but I think,
00:45:11.240
you know, in regards to lifting, I don't think you have to be the size of a, you know, power lifter
00:45:17.080
or a strong man, but just definitely having a basic build and not just, you know, looking like a
00:45:23.020
20 pounds of shit shoved in a five pound bag, you are going to present yourself as, you know,
00:45:30.580
being somebody not to mess with, but beyond all of that, I think just having that aura of confidence.
00:45:37.240
And again, that's by going back to what we originally started talking about, you know,
00:45:41.380
purposely putting yourself in uncomfortable situations to be comfortable. That could be
00:45:46.460
jujitsu. That could be climbing up the corporate ladder in your job. You know, if you're afraid of
00:45:51.100
public speaking and you fought past that, and now you're, you know, in charge of the meetings at
00:45:55.340
your company or, you know, going to the gym and crushing that squat or that PR, just something
00:46:02.320
that pushes you past your previously preconceived notions of your limits. Because a lot of times
00:46:10.360
people will use fitness, for example, will approach a bar and say in their mind, man, I can't pull this
00:46:17.640
deadlift. It's too heavy. And what happens? They can't pull it. Having that mindset, that confidence
00:46:23.280
ingrained as you're approaching the bar is going to set you up for success. If you allow that notion
00:46:29.760
of doubt and fear to creep into your mind, it's like poison. The minute that it goes in, it's just
00:46:35.500
going to start eating away at your brain, at your mindset, and at your abilities. And I think a lot
00:46:41.000
of times people don't really take that into consideration, especially with a lot of people
00:46:45.180
that I deal with in my space of teaching in the gun community. A lot of people think that just by
00:46:52.260
carrying a gun is good enough or even carrying a gun and coming to my classes is good enough. It's
00:46:58.100
much more than that. Carrying a gun is just one of the many skills that as a man, I personally think
00:47:04.320
that you should have at the ready. You dubbed it multidisciplinary tactician, right? Yeah. And
00:47:10.340
you know, it's not just about the gun, the blade, the mindset, the athleticism, the medical skills,
00:47:15.020
the verbal acuity. It's an all-encompassing skill set. And the way that I describe it is if you were
00:47:21.140
to cut an old oak tree in half and look at the rings in the trunk, you will see the rings obviously
00:47:27.100
get bigger and bigger the closer you get to the outside of the trunk. And that can kind of be
00:47:30.620
compared to the development of those skill sets. Let's say you only have, you don't want to,
00:47:36.100
you only want to do six months of each to do six months of jiu-jitsu consistently. Okay,
00:47:40.120
I'm good with that. Now I'm going to do six months of just consistent pistol work with every local
00:47:44.760
training class for pistol work. Okay, that's solid. Same thing with the rifle. Same thing with blade
00:47:49.260
work. Same thing with medical skills. If I'm uncomfortable with public speaking, I'm going
00:47:54.280
to go to a Toastmasters event that's in my area. Really basic stuff like that. And eventually,
00:48:00.140
if you keep doing that in a repetitive cycle, those rings, in theory, will get bigger. But again,
00:48:06.400
because it's going to take a lot of time, effort, and energy out of your life, a lot of people
00:48:11.940
ultimately won't do it. But beyond all those skills, I still feel that mindset or mind grit or
00:48:19.400
having that unbreakable soul is by far the most powerful tool that you can have. As I explain to
00:48:25.460
my students in the safety brief I give before I teach my class, I say, you know, you can come to
00:48:29.820
my classes. I definitely appreciate it. And we can have a good time today, which we are. And we can
00:48:34.400
build a good network of friends. And we can obviously get better, get better at the mechanical
00:48:38.620
skills that we're going to learn today. But if you do carry concealed every day, and you strap up,
00:48:44.440
and you go into your bathroom, and you look at yourself in the mirror before you start your day,
00:48:48.780
and you can't say to yourself, today may be the day that I may ultimately have to take another
00:48:53.560
person's life in defense of myself or those that I love, then carrying that on your hip is all null and
00:48:58.220
void. It's just an overweight paperweight that could potentially be taken away from you and used
00:49:02.160
against you. That's a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow. Because again, I personally feel
00:49:06.800
against my opinion, people, I kind of got into heated debates with people about this. But I
00:49:11.060
personally don't feel that that can be cultivated truly as an adult. I feel like that's really
00:49:16.860
cultivated as a child, as you're growing up, to be pushed to have that good leadership, that good
00:49:25.000
family structure to always prevail. Again, I'm not really saying that it 100% can't happen as an
00:49:32.540
adult, but it's definitely going to be more difficult because you're not, you don't have those
00:49:36.580
preconceived ideas or those pre-meditated ideas of what it's like to be uncomfortable because you
00:49:44.120
never experienced it as a child. Let's go back, and I think this would be something good to wind
00:49:48.720
down on, but let's go back to the four cues that I took you away from 20 minutes ago or whatever it
00:49:53.760
was. No worries, no worries. Remind us what these are. These are the four cues that potentially somebody
00:49:58.100
is a threat. Is that what we're looking at here? Yeah. So these cues can be potentially looked at as
00:50:04.660
what happens prior to a criminal assault. Okay. And a good example as to if people doubt me on this,
00:50:10.720
if people go to liveleak.com, it's basically a YouTube-esque type website that deals with dash
00:50:17.760
camera videos from law enforcement or closed circuit security cameras. If you want to see how real fights
00:50:22.180
occur, that's kind of what I tell my students to go and look. And the four cues can basically be
00:50:27.480
grouped into one cluster or three can be grouped into one cluster and then one standalone.
00:50:32.380
When it comes to a cluster, you want to look at multiple scenarios together, right? If they only
00:50:37.040
have one of these situations, it's not as significant as if you have three different
00:50:42.680
behaviors that fall into a cluster. Exactly. Like if one of these happens,
00:50:46.060
it doesn't mean that you can automatically punch them in the face or draw your gun.
00:50:49.000
Right. But if you start to see more than one, okay, we've got something here we need to really be
00:50:52.860
aware of. And beyond all else, just as we talked about before, if these are happening and you're
00:50:57.960
having that gut feeling go off, then yes, it's go time. So the first is what's called a grooming cue.
00:51:04.500
Again, from law enforcement that have done repeated breakdowns with criminals that they bring in,
00:51:11.800
and they've talked to them, as well as again, the minimal research that I've done on my own,
00:51:17.000
it's more of a cue that kind of should show you that they're lying, that they're being deceptive.
00:51:23.720
And this can be any movement of their hand or their hands to their face. So pinching of the
00:51:31.020
bridge of their nose, rubbing of the forehead, rubbing of the cheek, rubbing of the beard or the
00:51:36.280
chin, taking your hand, pointing your fingers backwards and rubbing your neck. All of these allow
00:51:43.040
this unknown individual to break eye contact with you. So I'm sure as you figured out, as well as I have
00:51:51.940
as a parent, children are inherently horrible at lying. And you can tell immediately by looking
00:51:59.000
into their eyes. And if they're lying, they immediately try to avert them. So criminals
00:52:04.760
more or less do the same. If they are trying to close that gap on you and are making up some type
00:52:10.440
of ruse, hey, do you have the time? Do you have a cigarette? They'll probably be doing the grooming
00:52:14.840
cue at the exact same time. And you'll see that break of eye contact. And also because if they are a
00:52:20.920
normal criminal of the penal system, and this is in their first rodeo, they know that top level
00:52:27.480
interrogators know what to look for in their eyes to tell if somebody's lying.
00:52:33.960
The second cue kind of goes hand in hand with the grooming cue. And this is called
00:52:37.380
target glancing. And target glancing is a movement of their head to the nine, the three,
00:52:45.200
or the six o'clock. And again, this can blend very easily into that grooming cue because as
00:52:51.140
they're rubbing their neck, they can be transitioning their head to the nine or the three o'clock or even
00:52:55.580
the six. And the reason that they're doing this is to look for any potential witnesses that could
00:53:01.640
be used against them in a court of law for the crime that they're about to commit. Along with that,
00:53:07.360
especially in today's technological ridden age, they're probably also looking for any security
00:53:11.660
cameras around that, again, could potentially be used against them in a court of law.
00:53:15.600
So those two kind of blend very easily together. The third cue will more than likely happen if the
00:53:23.760
person, if the unknown individual has already closed that distance and now they're verbalizing with you
00:53:28.760
basically nose to nose. And this is what's known as a definitive weight shift. This is where they're
00:53:35.160
bringing their dominant leg back. And again, if anybody's listening that has done boxing or striking
00:53:42.200
art knows it's because they're preloading their hips prior to the strike that they're about to
00:53:48.360
throw, probably a haymaker. So if those two have happened and he's closed the distance and now he's
00:53:59.080
Interesting. And at that point, you have a very limited time to react to that.
00:54:03.260
Yes. And that is when I go over, you know, throwing some type of eye jab.
00:54:11.980
The cues as well as the eye jab, I definitely credit to my good friend Craig Douglas as well.
00:54:16.380
But the reason he explains as well as I explain the eye jab is again, if this person has some type
00:54:21.920
of mental deficiency, if there's a language barrier, if they're deaf and they're not understanding what
00:54:26.840
you're saying, I would much rather be in court over a scratch cornea than breaking a mentally handicapped
00:54:34.780
dude's jaw because I wanted to, you know, throw a closed fist at his face.
00:54:39.040
Well, and I imagine too, it's, it's much more effective. A pinky finger could render them useless
00:54:44.960
versus a big haymaker and you miss the target or the dude's got a strong chin and you're still in the
00:54:53.060
For a lot of people that again, like we talked about earlier today, that, that you mentioned
00:54:56.860
people that believe that they're going to rise to the occasion, guarantee you those people are
00:55:00.780
going to throw that potentially closed fist. Now they're going to break their hand and now they're
00:55:04.760
even in a bigger shit sandwich than they were already in.
00:55:07.280
So by throwing that potential eye jab, you're rendering the person useless for a brief moment
00:55:13.160
in time for you to, if you throw an eye jab and you see that they have a weapon in their hand,
00:55:17.300
obviously, you know, do follow up strikes, you know, whatever you want, or best case scenario,
00:55:24.540
And then the fourth standalone is a movement of their hands to their waistline because regardless
00:55:31.920
of what the average person thinks, criminals carry tools in the same places that we do. So,
00:55:38.520
you know, if they're carrying a firearm or a contact weapon, like a, like a blade or anything
00:55:43.160
of that nature, it's more like you're going to be stuffed somewhere in their waistline or their
00:55:46.900
pocket. So again, if any of those three are happening and you're, again, that, that gut
00:55:51.700
feeling is in place or this guy's approaching you and having those heuristic cues that are out
00:55:56.960
of place, like I talked about earlier with, you know, that, uh, that person that approached my
00:56:00.560
student with the hoodie on the pants and 90 degree weather, and you see them start going for their
00:56:04.960
waistline, then again, it's probably go time and you might want to get ready for that.
00:56:08.900
Well, Ian, this has been fascinating. Obviously there's so much more to this and it's not just
00:56:13.620
talk. I mean, that's the thing. A lot of guys will hear this and think, okay,
00:56:16.420
I've got some ideas. No, maybe you have some ideas, but now you have to go put them into action
00:56:21.060
so that you can practice and get yourself in a situation where if something like this happens,
00:56:25.700
you're able to defend yourself and the people you care about. So how do we connect with you?
00:56:29.340
How do we learn more? Cause you're in New Hampshire, right?
00:56:32.200
Correct. Um, but I do travel all over the United States this year. I've been all over the West
00:56:37.100
coast in Washington and Oregon. I'm going to California later this year, as well as back to
00:56:42.220
Washington. I think, uh, actually this weekend I'll be going down to the Georgia and Alabama area,
00:56:47.980
as well as Texas and Florida. I'm pretty much all over. So if, if there isn't a date or a place that
00:56:54.340
coincides with you, again, I'm more than welcome to tailor myself to come out to you and get some good
00:56:59.860
learning out to you as well. And all of my information can be found on my website,
00:57:04.440
which is runenationllc.com. My Facebook and Instagram is the same runenationllc. My email
00:57:12.220
is runenationllc at Gmail. Along with that, I'm highly involved with a collective group of experts
00:57:19.000
known as Greyhive. The website is greyhive.com. And we come from all facets of life from the military
00:57:25.320
soft community to law enforcement, to psychology. And basically we're just trying to create a tight
00:57:31.960
network of well-known and knowledgeable people that the average consumer can come to online
00:57:39.900
and get accredited and valuable information. Because I do understand that for a lot of people
00:57:45.800
out there, having just time to breathe in your day-to-day life is hard enough. So forget about
00:57:51.220
spending the time and money and the effort coming out to a class. I do understand that. So this is kind
00:57:57.540
of our way to get, again, this valuable information out to the average consumer who may or may not be
00:58:04.080
able to get that hands-on training. Right on, man. We'll make sure we link it up so the guys know
00:58:08.660
exactly where to go. I'll ask you this final question as we wind down here. What does it mean
00:58:13.380
to be a man? To me, a man is somebody that is valued and trusted in their community. Someone who is
00:58:21.320
always willing to push themselves past their preconceived limits, like we talked about earlier.
00:58:28.180
The worst thing, in my opinion, a man can do is stay stagnant and basically allow themselves to rot
00:58:34.740
in their day-to-day life. You should always be pushing and should always be striving to be better
00:58:39.580
because my opinion, perfection is unrealistic, but we should always strive to get to it daily if possible.
00:58:47.300
Right on. That's powerful. I know the guys are going to resonate with that. Well, Ian,
00:58:50.020
I appreciate you, man. I know it's been a long time in the works, but I appreciate your patience and
00:58:53.860
of course you taking some time to impart some of this wisdom on us. Much needed. Hopefully we'll
00:58:58.640
never have to use this, but I would rather know how to use some of these tactics and strategies and
00:59:02.920
tools and skill sets, but not need them. So appreciate you, brother. Thanks for coming on the
00:59:06.400
show today. Absolutely. Thank you and have a great rest of your day. There it is, guys. My conversation
00:59:12.300
with Ian Strimbeck. I hope that you enjoyed this one as much as I did. I would encourage you to
00:59:16.780
connect with Ian, see what courses he's offering, see where he's offering them because there's only
00:59:21.720
so much that we can do when it comes to talking about this. You really have to apply a lot of
00:59:27.320
this information. So if you're looking for some sort of course and learning about the tactics and
00:59:31.220
the strategies and the things that we talked about today, I really can't think of anyone better than
00:59:35.340
Ian to help you with that. So go check out his site, connect with us on Facebook, Instagram,
00:59:39.700
Twitter, YouTube, wherever you are on social media. I am very, very active on Twitter. I answer a lot
00:59:46.520
of questions over there. So if you have a question of me, you can go to Twitter and search for me at
00:59:51.420
order of man. And I'm also extremely, extremely active on my personal account on Instagram and
00:59:57.340
that's at Ryan Mickler, M I C H L E R. So go check it out there. Let us know what you think of the show.
01:00:03.140
As always, guys, I always finish this by saying thank you. I appreciate you being here. Stoked that
01:00:08.120
you're here with us and we just couldn't do it without you. And we know, man, we need more good,
01:00:13.740
honorable, strong, virtuous men in this battle to reclaim what it means to be a man. And you guys
01:00:20.200
are doing it. And I appreciate the help and support along the way. So with that said, I will sign out
01:00:24.860
for the day. Make sure you subscribe, leave that rating review if you haven't done it yet. And until
01:00:29.120
tomorrow for our ask me anything, take action and become the man you are meant to be.
01:00:33.660
Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life
01:00:39.280
and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.