#146： Deadly Navy SEAL Skills Every Man Should Know
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Summary
In this episode of the Art of Manliness podcast, Brett sits down with former Navy SEAL Clint Emerson to talk about his new book, "100 Deadly Skills: A SEAL Operative's Guide to Eluding Pursuers, Evading Capture and Surviving Any Dangerous Situation."
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. So a little
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over a year ago, our illustrator, Ted Slampiak, been to the site, you've probably seen his
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illustration, really talented guy. He emailed me and said, Brett, look, I'm working on this
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new project, so I'm not going to be able to work on as many projects for you. And I was
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like, well, what's the project? And he said, it's this book of Navy SEAL skills on how to
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make improvised weapons, how to pick locks, how to evade someone in traffic, how to hide
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things and even kill people. And I was like, this sounds like the coolest thing in the world.
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And I was like, yeah, he's like, yeah, it's really cool. And even like my illustrations
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have to be approved by the government before we can publish it. I'm like, this is awesome.
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You have to let me know about it when it comes out. Well, he did. And the book is out. It's
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called 100 Deadly Skills, The SEAL Operative's Guide to Eluding Pursuers, Evading Capture and
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Surviving Any Dangerous Situation. And the author of it is Clint Emerson, and he worked with Ted
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to come out with this book. And it's an awesome book. It is a lot of fun. It's just cool, Jason
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Bourne stuff. Even if you don't have to ever use it, you feel good or feel cool knowing that
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you know how to do this stuff if you ever had to. Today on the podcast, Clint and I discuss
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these 100 Deadly Skills, why a civilian should even know how to make an anal concealment.
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Why is that? Why should we know that? We just talked about some other great, cool Jason Bourne,
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James Bond, Navy SEAL skills. A lot of fun stuff on the podcast with a lot of useful, practical
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takeaway information. You can start incorporating in your daily life to have more situational awareness
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and to protect you and your loved ones. So without further ado, 100 Deadly Skills with Clint Emerson.
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Hey, thanks, Brett. It's great to meet you. Great site. Love your stuff.
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Thank you so much. So your book is 100 Deadly Skills. It's illustrated by A1 favorite Ted Slampiak.
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But before we get into the details of the books, this is fun. We're going to talk about some really
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cool Jason Bourne stuff today. Let's talk a bit about your background. How did you go from becoming
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a Navy SEAL, transitioning to running a security consulting company?
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Well, I think becoming a SEAL started just like a lot of guys where as they were a kid, they probably
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met a SEAL, saw something on TV, read a book. Something usually triggers that. For me, I grew up overseas in
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Saudi Arabia. I was there from the second grade all the way to high school. And I was traveling through Frankfurt
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with my family on a vacation back to the States. And at the Frankfurt Airport, at the bar,
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we were waiting on a flight. And I was probably nine, 10 years old. And at the bar, there was a guy
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with a, you know, like a black polo on. And I could see a tattoo kind of hanging out from his sleeve on
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his left arm. And so I asked, you know, being a curious kid is like, what's that? He said, it's a
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trident. So what's a trident? He said, it represents, you know, a SEAL, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he
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kind of gave me the breakdown. Eventually, he was like, where are you from, kid? I'm like, I live in
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Saudi. And so because I kept on asking about like, well, what do these SEALs do? And finally, he gave
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me a little snippet that stuck in my head forever. And that was, well, you know, bomb Libya, right?
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And I was like, yeah, yeah, because I was living in Saudi. And Vice President George Bush at the time
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came in country and said, we're going to have C-130s in case they retaliate into Saudi Arabia on Americans.
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Um, but long story short, he gave me a story about how the SEALs went in, took out the anti-aircraft
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guns so that the B-111s could come in nice and low, drop bombs and pull out. It made sense to me as a
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child. Then later, the funny part is, is I get finally through SEAL training and end up at SEAL team
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three, which at the time focused primarily on the Middle East. Um, and I started looking through the
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archives, talking to guys who'd been around for a while and asked them about that particular mission.
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Well, they were like, yeah, we never, no, nobody here ever did that. So I was like, huh, well, maybe it's out
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at, you know, one of the more, um, discrete commands, you know, like SEAL team six. Uh, you know, eventually I
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end up at SEAL team six. So then I do the same thing. I start asking around and, uh, no one has any record
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of any kind of op like that ever taking place. And I guess the point is, is yeah, it was sparked by
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probably a fraudulent operation that never happened, but it stuck in my head forever. Um,
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but that's where my career began. So it's actually kind of funny. Um, and then, you know, while I've
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been, you know, while I did my 20 years towards the end, I, you know, you see a lot of guys start to
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get out early and they end up doing contract work in Iraq or in Afghanistan wearing body armor. And
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some of them get to do some fun stuff, but overall it's, it's nothing, it's nothing glamorous.
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It's nothing that you really want to be doing, but the money's great. So a lot of guys kind of
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fall into doing that type of stuff. And, uh, I knew I was a career guy. I was going to do my 20 and
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then, you know, figured out from there, but I kind of wanted to go into more of the corporate side,
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um, doing higher level stuff that, uh, consists of crisis management policies, workplace violence
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policies and, uh, and then educating workforces. So we basically, now I'm building this stuff
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that's a policy driven. And then you take that policy, you turn it into workforce education
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via e-learning or videos, and you push it out via their, uh, whatever their platforms are,
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their servers or whatever they have in place, the infrastructure. So I could have never predicted
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doing that, but I wanted to do something a little smarter. I really didn't want to, uh,
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be standing on a wall in Iraq making 500 bucks a day. Um, so I really started investing in myself
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towards the end of my career and then set everything up so that I could get out and start
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paying myself the day that I got out vice what a lot of guys either don't have a plan,
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didn't have time to make a plan, or they just get out and they go with whatever, whatever their
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buddies are doing. And, uh, so I kind of forecasted a little bit and put some things together so that
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I could, uh, do my own thing and hence escape the wolf. All right. So escape the wolf. You guys go
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into corporations, help them with their digital security. Also just travel security.
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Yeah, we've, we've put together, um, crisis management plans and then educated, you know,
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the workforce on what to do during natural disasters, what to do during active shooters. I mean,
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you name it. Um, but we've also do, uh, network analysis, vulnerability assessments. Um,
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but our unique capability that's been really attractive to fortune 500s is, uh, our ability
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to really get in clandestinely, like literally breaking in using criminal tactics, uh, and
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then taking and taking over their networks. So if we can just get to one computer that's
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on their network, then we take it over. And then, and then at the end, we give a, a nice
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big, thick vulnerability report and then tell them how to fix those problems. So it emulates,
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um, bad guys, it emulates a foreign Intel service. It, it also, uh, emulates an insider attack,
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like something like Sony. So, you know, if, if something can be done at the computer inside
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the office, then we will do that along with, you know, your typical remote attacks, you
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know, from outside the fence line, trying to get in, you know, from the internet. Um, so
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we kind of do it all in one shot, um, which gives them, you know, facility threat assessments,
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where are all their gaps and loopholes. Can I just, you know, a lot of times we get in
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during the day with, you know, a coffee in one hand and my cell phone up to my ear and
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somebody will just hold the door open for me and I'm in. Um, so we put it all together,
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social engineering, facility assessments, cyber, and then give them a big fat report.
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That's awesome. Well, let's talk about your book, uh, 100 deadly skills. Um, so Ted Slampiak,
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he does the illustrations of our art of manliness. Um, and when he told me about this project,
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he's like, yeah, I'm working on this project with this Navy SEAL. This is like about a year
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ago. And it's like, he's like a hundred skills, like Navy SEAL skills. And like, it has to be
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approved by the government. And I was like, wait a minute, what kind of stuff are you putting in a
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book that needs to be approved by the government, uh, first? So, I mean, what kind of stuff, like,
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I'm curious, like what, what things in the book needed to get approval from the government
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Well, really it's, it's, it's a much bigger level than that. Um, ever since, uh, No Easy
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Day came out by Mark Owen, um, that book kind of created a firestorm with, uh, an approval system
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that no one knew about prior to Mark releasing his book. So everyone else prior to him had written
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books, put them out, published them. Nobody really had any clue that, wait a minute, I'm supposed
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to get this stuff reviewed by the Pentagon before I publish. Well, you know, Mark, unfortunately
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for him, he, uh, he ended up being the guy that, you know, took, took a barrage of fire,
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federal investigations, and probably a whole lot of other stuff that we don't know about
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because his information was, uh, you know, it was light. It wasn't anything that anyone tells
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you before you get out or you retire, Hey, make sure you do this. Um, so, uh, first, I mean,
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the book, every, every person in the military, it's highly recommended that if they're going
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to put something on paper or if they're going to put a PowerPoint brief together to go brief
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a bunch of people that it gets reviewed by the Pentagon. And, uh, now, I mean, I highly
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recommend it. So it's just more about as a former military guy or retired guy doing the
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right thing, making sure that what you put in the book isn't somehow sensitive. Um, and that's
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not up to the individual's discretion. That's up to the government's discretion. So I had
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to turn all hundred skills in and have them review each and every one along with the narratives,
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the illustrations, you name it. And then they actually, from the Pentagon, they send it to
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every agency you ever, you know, stood at. So it went to Naval Special Warfare. It went
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to SEAL Team 6. It went to SOCOM. It went to the NSA. So any place I ever hung out, uh, it is
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the Pentagon's responsibility to disseminate it out to everyone. And then everyone gets
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to take a look at it and put their two cents in on whether they think something is sensitive
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or not. But the review process is there, um, for that reason to protect information that
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could possibly be sensitive or classified. That is, you know, sometimes to a former or retired
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guy, maybe something innocent that he just didn't think that was all that sensitive, but
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turns out it is. And, uh, that's kind of the, that's kind of the rules now that, uh, you know,
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since no easy day. Gotcha. That makes sense. All right. So, uh, in your book, you talk about
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everything from how to have situational awareness, how to make improvised gas masks. Uh, I'm just
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curious, like, why do you think, you know, why should civilians know this stuff? Like how to make
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improvised weapons and anal concealments? Um, because like whenever we've done content about sort of
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tactical things, like how to pick locks or escape zip ties, you always get a lot of
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guff from people like, Oh, well now the bad guys know this. And law enforcement officers say,
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well, you're just making our job harder now. Um, why, why do you think civilians should know this
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sort of thing? Uh, first I think, you know, with, with the increased number of attacks, whether it
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be lone wolves, inspired tire, terrorism, um, you name it, everything that's been going on lately,
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whether you're on a train, you know, in France or you're in your office building, you know,
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in DC, uh, there's always that possibility of, uh, a good day going really, really bad. And our
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natural born instincts are great. Usually, uh, you've got something in your gut says, you know,
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something's wrong here and, uh, you hopefully react, you react to that accordingly. Um, but a lot
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of people don't, and it's getting to the point now where, you know, bad guys, uh, are becoming more
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and more advanced. And so your natural born instincts are great, but you got to, uh, you got
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out of, um, couple them with some good skills as well. So a lot of the skills in the book are
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presented in an offensive manner, but it's, it's all about, you know, exposing the bad guy offense in
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order to, you know, fortify, um, your personal defense. Um, and even give you some of those
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offensive skills so that you can fight violence with violence. And, you know, as far as people,
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you know, watching movies, reading books or playing games, and then leveraging that as an
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excuse of why they go do bad stuff. The reality is, is if someone's going to go do something,
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they're going to go do it. Um, and most of the time they're, uh, they might be, uh, leveraging some
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of the information that's out there, but it's all over the internet these days. It's everywhere else.
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Um, and I like to believe that more good people read books, uh, than bad people do. So, um, the more
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well-educated, ready civilians there are out there to take on, you know, these, uh, encounters with the
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random bad guy, I think the better. So you call a prepared civilian or prepared some person like a
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violent nomad, which I thought was a cool, cool, uh, cool description there. Um, and it's funny,
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you talk, you start off with the everyday carry kit and something we've talked about on the site
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before, but what should be in an EDC for a violent nomad so that he's prepared in any sort of
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situation? Um, you know, these things change day to day. I think a lot of times EDCs, uh, go hand
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in hand with what you're wearing, what you're carrying. Um, you kind of have to tailor it each
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day to whatever it is, uh, the environments that you might be visiting. Um, but overall, I mean,
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if you're going to be traveling abroad or, you know, you might be put in kind of a high threat
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situation at some point, you should always have the means of escape. Um, I'm a big proponent of
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that. If, uh, if you can hide a key somewhere, uh, you know, handcuffed keys are readily available
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all over the internet. If you can put a razor blade somewhere between the two of those, you can get out
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of just about anything without knowing tricks. Um, if you look all the way back to, you know, 1921 Houdini's
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manual of, uh, of escape, he didn't do it because he was, you know, obviously great at some kind of,
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uh, you know, of all true magic. He was just, he was just good at escape because he was good at
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hiding tools everywhere that he could leverage and use, uh, without anybody knowing. So it's really
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nothing new or novel, but, you know, having, having some tools on you that give you the upper hand
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when things go south. Um, you know, I like, you know, the zebra pens cause they're one,
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they're cheap, but two, it's a steel barrel pen that you can buy it at any store. Um, but because
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of the way it's designed, you can punch it right through plywood. Um, there's a, there's a myriad of
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things I think that are common day items that everyone can utilize. You don't need to go spend
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three, $400 on, you know, all the different, uh, items that I see online or, you know, different
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sites, but, um, keeping it simple, I think too, is, is a, is a priority. Um, there's a point in which
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you can be carrying a whole lot of stuff that just makes you look suspicious to begin with. And, uh,
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the goal isn't to look like a bad guy. It's, uh, it's to just have what you need to, uh, increase
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your odds of survivability. Yeah. I love, you had a section about the zebra pen, um, that it could be
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turn, like you could punch it through plywood, which I was impressed with, but there's other
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uses you do with that, uh, improvised weapon in a pinch. Correct. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean,
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obviously if it can go through plywood, then it can go through, uh, you know, you know, I have
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different points on there that if you're going to use a pen one, the grip, um, a lot of people think
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that you got to have your thumb running parallel to the barrel of the, of the pen or a knife. The
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reality is you want a nice fist grip. It can be overhand underhand, but, um, you know, and then that
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way, when you do have to use it to stab the bad guy, uh, it doesn't slip or, or inevitably end up
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on the ground. Um, and once you do it, you want to just keep going. And the reason I kind of talk
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about the violent nomad, that's, that's, you know, good people using skills for good, not evil. And,
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but it's, it's a point in which in the fight that you have to be just as violent as the person you're
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dealing with or else you're going to lose. So that's kind of the, the, you know, dovetails into
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everything inside a hundred deli skills. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, in addition to the EDC, you also
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recommend creating what you call the vehicle bolt bag. I think we've written about this before, but
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can you give us the general idea of what a vehicle bolt bag and what sort of things you might want to
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keep in it? Sure. A bolt bag is, uh, is really, you know, if crisis strikes you while you're out on
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the road, you want to have an ability to, uh, you know, survive at least for a day. I mean,
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depending on what you're doing, you may want to increase that. And it doesn't have to be a big
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backpack. It's something small in nature, uh, a messenger bag, if you will, that can hold, you
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know, water, some food, um, extra batteries and extra phone, um, all of the essentials that you
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might need. If you, your vehicle turns upside down, you want everything for that bolt bag
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compartmentalized into something. So it's not spread out. You have to assume worst case scenario
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that if you get into an accident, stuff's all over the car. Um, you don't have to be collecting
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it up. You want to be able to put the bag also somewhere that you can get to it. No matter
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whatever the configuration of the vehicle is, you want to be able to grab it and get out of that
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vehicle, um, as quickly as possible. And so the things that you need to have inside could be
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warmies, you know, environmental type stuff. It could be, uh, survivability, all your life
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sustainment, um, tools, you know, water, food, warmth, um, signal and signal these days is usually
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cell phones, radios. Uh, if you're out in the middle of nowhere, having a spot or some kind of
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GPS system on, um, you know, that, that can be tracked and you can be found. Um, there's a number
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of things, but those would be probably the primary. Awesome. So one thing I've noticed in the
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tactical world that often gets overlooked is fitness, right? There, there's a lot of content
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about improving your, your self-defense, you know, you are, you know, unarmed defense using weapons,
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blade or firearms, but really, really talk about fitness, but you have a whole set, you have a
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section in there about the nomad workout. What sort of exercises do you recommend, uh, people using
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to stay fit for fighting conditions? Um, yeah, I put the, uh, run fight run philosophy, which is
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something that I do, um, you know, literally every day. And it's not about looking good in a mirror
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or, you know, getting ripped, you know, the, the, the kind of the secondary results. Sure. You probably
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look good in a t-shirt and you're probably, you know, can see your abs, but that's not the primary
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reason. Primary reason is to give you functional strength that works when you are in the middle of
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an attack. Um, so run, fight, run one in a fight. It's, it's great to have skills, but if the skills
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aren't coupled with cardiovascular endurance, then you're probably going to run out of gas and you're
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going to inevitably end up either losing or not having enough energy to get away from the problem
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or the conflict. So you want to make sure that you have sprints included into your workouts. Hence
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the reason you have the run aspect of run, fight, run. Now the fight, I like heavy bags. Um, you know,
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I like, it doesn't matter if you're a boxer or not, you can get on a heavy bag and go to town on that
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thing, punching it, kicking it, kneeing it, whatever you need to do. Um, and over time you'll find out
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that your punches, your kicks and your knees become a pretty darn swift. And, uh, so combining one minute
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of fighting on a heavy bag with a sprint and then coming right back to that heavy bag and utilizing
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it for squats, lunges. Um, if you just want to do, um, you know, heavy bag carries heavy bag on the
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ground and also strike it from there and then do a sprint, but you just want to rotate between sprints
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and some kind of fighting action on a, on a heavy bag or whatever you can get your hands on, um, back and
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forth and then increase your times for both as you move through it each day so that you might start
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out at a minute run in a minute fight, um, and go back and forth five to six times. And then, you
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know, a month later you'll be, you know, going multiple minutes, which you want to work up to
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about a three minute round, which in boxing is the average. So you'd three minutes on a heavy bag,
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three minutes at a fast pace run and rotating back and forth between the two, switching up your bag
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routine to either the hanging bag, the bag on the ground, or using that bag to do different lifts.
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That's generally, that's generally the purpose so that if you do get into a fight, at least
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cardiovascularly, you can maintain the fight and hopefully have enough gas to run away. Not just,
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you don't want to stay engaged in it. You want to get away as soon as possible.
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Yeah. Yeah. I love how simple and functional that is. So the one thing I want to talk about,
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so we've had a lot of high profile mass shootings in the U S the past few years. And one thing I've
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noticed, I think it's sort of disheartening is that whenever the news reports on them, I rarely
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hear them getting experts on to talk to civilians on what you're supposed to do if you find yourself
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in this sort of situation. Um, so what should you do if you find yourself in an active shooter situation?
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Um, the philosophy that, you know, even with, uh, my company that we put,
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which to corporations is the run, fight, run, I mean, I'm sorry, run, hide or fight. Um,
00:22:22.860
it's a lot like the workout, but the, the goal is one to get away and running. If, if you hear
00:22:30.820
shots or you smell fire, any kind of crisis, you obviously want to increase distance. Um, that
00:22:36.820
obviously will increase survivability. So running, running is a, the first option that should be part
00:22:44.260
of a mental checklist. And then the run should be in a zigzag pattern. Um, anybody who's been on the
00:22:50.620
battlefield knows that someone running away in a zigzag left to right and increasing distance at
00:22:56.960
the same time is a very hard shot to make. Um, so if there's an active shooter, it's his first time
00:23:04.960
to go into a building and start killing people. His accuracy is already going to be diminished just
00:23:09.620
on nerves alone. But when you add in a zigzag pattern and you're increasing distance, then
00:23:16.380
you're probably going to win, um, on that front. Um, and then as you run, you want to run from cover
00:23:24.120
to cover. Um, and the way I define cover versus concealment, concealment is like hiding behind
00:23:29.680
curtains. It's great. I can't see you, but the bullet's going to punch right through it. Whereas
00:23:35.540
cover is more like a planter, an engine block, a concrete wall. I can't see you. And if I shoot in
00:23:42.360
that general direction, the bullet is not going to, um, be successful. So you always want to run
00:23:48.580
from cover to cover. You always want to maintain a zigzag pattern. Um, hide, you know, like the guys
00:23:55.320
on the train, they were in a confined space. So in their head, they're like, can I run? No. Can I hide?
00:24:00.740
No. So that leaves the third option, which is fight. So with the hide, you want to make sure
00:24:06.280
you're hiding behind cover. You always want to make sure you can keep your eyes on the bad guy.
00:24:11.520
You never want to lose track of that because that's the one advantage that you can maintain
00:24:15.620
is knowing where he is at all times, which also determines your tactical decision-making,
00:24:20.880
which is okay. He's not looking at me or in my general vicinity right now. So now I can move to
00:24:25.560
the next position and always increasing distance hiding along the way. Um, but when you're in a
00:24:32.520
confined space of a room, a train, a plane, then obviously fight is really the only option.
00:24:38.960
And, uh, so the fight is better done as a team. So I always say, Hey, you know, you need to have a
00:24:45.080
team two or three, and each person is going to have big macro jobs or positions in the fight.
00:24:52.100
One guy's going for the weapon. One guy's going for the legs. One guy's going for the head. If I
00:24:57.560
can control the head, I can control the body. Um, and that's the general gist of how active
00:25:04.000
shooters should be dealt with from a civilian's point of view. And then you have schools and
00:25:08.660
lockdown drills, which is an entirely different philosophy that was designed so that SWAT teams
00:25:13.860
would be successful. Um, cause if you have everyone hiding and out of the way, um, then it gives a SWAT
00:25:20.120
team a greater chance of, uh, winning the fight against that lone wolf standing by himself in a
00:25:26.260
hallway. Um, but not necessarily, you know, always great for the people hiding. Yeah. I mean,
00:25:32.560
has their philosophy sort of changed because, uh, since the recent shootings where oftentimes these
00:25:37.320
guys are just killing themselves after the, you know, very quickly after they, uh, finished their
00:25:43.260
job, right. Uh, are some policies changing where they're actually encouraging security on campus or
00:25:49.540
teachers to like go and like try to disarm the guy as fast as possible.
00:25:54.200
Yeah. I mean, I think it, so the environment's been dictating, dictating that a lot for us. If we come
00:25:59.180
in and we custom build something, it's, uh, you know, do you have a campus setting, multiple buildings
00:26:03.920
on a large estate that that's one train of, uh, best practices or are you in a downtown kind of a,
00:26:11.220
more of a vertical space, you know, um, if you're a campus, you know, that's kind of a nightmare
00:26:16.800
situation. Um, and if you're in a vertical space, that's a little better, but really the environment
00:26:22.240
is going to dictate what the students or what employees should be doing, um, in order to survive
00:26:29.380
an active shooter. It's not so much just a one, there's no, there's no just bandaid to just kind
00:26:34.420
of fix it all. It's, uh, it's really environmentally, um, based. Sure. All right. So you mentioned something
00:26:40.640
interesting. So, uh, you have to recognize what's going on around you, right? You have to
00:26:45.580
recognize fire. You, you smell something and like the guys in the train, like that, uh, they recognize
00:26:51.680
the sound of, uh, some guy racking a rifle. Um, and so at least it's like situational awareness.
00:26:59.480
What can people do to develop that sort of situational awareness that they can, you know,
00:27:04.100
make fast actions as soon as they notice something's not right?
00:27:08.900
It's a tough one. Um, you know, you have so many distractions these days, but the best analogy I
00:27:13.820
can compare it to is, you know, the, you know, years ago you would never get in your car and think
00:27:19.600
about safety first. You just got in your car and you drove our parents. Um, now you get in your car
00:27:24.900
and without any thought you're putting on a seatbelt and then you're driving, you're taking it off and
00:27:30.600
it's all muscle memory. It's all just part of your daily habits that have been ingrained in us
00:27:38.340
because there's always that possibility of consequence. Consequence is what is really a
00:27:44.020
driving, um, force and making something a little more habitual for us. It's getting a ticket by a cop
00:27:50.640
or possible death in an accident. So we go, all right. Or it's just annoying beeping sound that your
00:27:56.220
car makes until you put your seatbelt on. Um, so consequence is really the driver, right? So now
00:28:01.800
if you take that analogy and I apply it to situational awareness, what is the consequence
00:28:06.700
of me sitting in this restaurant? What is the consequence of me being on a train and then
00:28:12.120
working backwards from that, you know? So inevitably what happens is all of a sudden you just start
00:28:17.620
paying attention to things a little better by what if-ing and you hear it all the time. How do you get
00:28:22.560
to a situation where, well, everywhere you go, you, what if it, um, and it's not really so much about
00:28:28.420
having this mental checklist or colors that represent different states that I'm supposed to
00:28:33.000
be in. It's just about being a little more alert, getting your head out of the cell phone from time
00:28:38.000
to time and taking the opportunity to go, what is the consequence of me sitting where I'm sitting
00:28:43.560
right now or me walking where I'm walking or driving where I'm driving? And you'll find yourself
00:28:47.940
actually coming up with things that you would do, uh, if that consequence, um, actually became
00:28:54.540
reality. And that's kind of a, that's kind of the quick analogy that I can give. Um, there's a mental
00:28:59.920
checklist obviously, but, uh, these things tend to, you know, work when you're doing it, but don't
00:29:06.420
become a habit unless you're thinking about consequence. Gotcha. So we could get into some other more
00:29:12.320
very like violent tactical things. There's a lot of great stuff in there. Like what to do if someone
00:29:16.580
pulls a gun on you from the front, from the back, how to make a various improvised weapons. Uh, the
00:29:23.220
gas mask thing was awesome. Uh, a weapon you can make, or a, like a flash bang you can make with a
00:29:28.740
lighter that's in there. Um, it's fun stuff, but I want to talk about, uh, some stuff that I think
00:29:34.220
would be really useful for folks who might not find themselves having to, you know, use this stuff,
00:29:39.660
uh, the more tactical, violent stuff, but you have a lot of things in there about, um, traveling, uh,
00:29:45.760
security travel. Like what do you do to keep yourself secure when you travel? So for folks
00:29:49.520
who are readers who travel a lot, what can they do? And I know I've, I'm always worried about this.
00:29:54.200
I kind of freak out about this whenever I say in a hotel room, but what can you do to maintain hope
00:29:58.840
security in your hotel room and that your stuff doesn't get stolen? Um, well, there's a first you
00:30:06.000
got to start. Once again, I like starting macro, like starting with, you know, okay, the country I'm
00:30:10.260
going to, um, I can pick a Marriott. I can pick a Hilton. What most people don't know is that
00:30:16.980
Marriott's Hilton's, a lot of your big Western hotel chains are not owned by Marriott. It's a
00:30:23.180
license. They're leveraging. It's usually held by a larger holding company, or you have 27 hotels,
00:30:30.160
let's say in China that all say Marriott, but they're owned by an investment portfolio.
00:30:34.860
And then Marriott, uh, headquarters then roams the planet, making sure that everyone is following
00:30:42.020
all of the best practices that they put into the manual that all of these holding companies are
00:30:47.500
supposed to be following. Hence the reason why when you walk into every Marriott on the planet,
00:30:51.440
they all feel exactly the same, but the reality is they're all owned by different people.
00:30:56.180
So that's the first thing you got to know is just because you're staying in a Marriott doesn't
00:31:01.160
mean it's a U S owned Marriott. So second, it could be owned by a hostile country. And when I
00:31:07.960
say hostile, I mean, countries that are, you know, doing cyber attacks against us every day so that,
00:31:13.720
you know, if you're brick countries, so Brazil, Russia, India, China, all the countries that are
00:31:18.360
trying to become economic superpowers and want to match America financially, well, then they will do
00:31:24.660
anything that they can to get ahead, which means if you stay in a hotel that's owned by a Chinese
00:31:30.880
holding company, but it says Marriott, uh, then everything in your room is subject to search
00:31:35.900
overtly or covertly. Um, as we found with the Olympics in Russia, they built a whole ton of stuff,
00:31:43.020
uh, hotels and buildings and everything. But when they built it, they went ahead and loaded it with
00:31:47.480
audio and video and, you know, every room. Um, this is nothing new. It's been going on since,
00:31:53.100
you know, the invention of the microphone. So, um, you have to know one that you have to basically
00:31:59.120
assume that you're always being watched. You're always being listened to. So your hotel room tends
00:32:04.800
to become a sanctuary for a lot of people and they feel at ease and relax, but really it's probably
00:32:10.280
where you should have your guard up the most, your valuables don't leave anything behind, especially
00:32:15.780
digital stuff. Uh, it doesn't matter if you got passwords, there's ways around, um, most of it,
00:32:22.340
especially when you're talking about foreign Intel services, sophisticated foreign Intel guys are
00:32:27.420
going to come into that room and they're going to take whatever they want off of any device you leave
00:32:32.260
behind and you're never going to know it. Um, that's why it's the government operating against
00:32:37.300
you. And why would the government operate against you? You're just a civilian on vacation. But the
00:32:41.600
reality is China's in particular is just doing shotgun blast sponge, like absorption of everything
00:32:49.120
they can that they will figure out later how to use against us. And it's becoming a trend.
00:32:54.300
So if they can do it through hacks and they'll also do it physically, if they can get ahold of a
00:32:59.400
laptop, I just had a friend come back from China and he stayed in his hotel room. Uh, you know, uh,
00:33:06.200
I was approximately like two weeks there and every day he'd come in the room, smell like smoke. So
00:33:11.960
he'd go to the front desk, say, Hey, my room smells like smoke. And I say, Oh, well, that's,
00:33:15.460
that's, uh, that's just the security forces checking your stuff. They like to smoke. And
00:33:19.400
he'd be like, okay, can it change rooms? Okay. Change rooms. So he changes rooms and every day
00:33:24.020
it smelled like smoke because they're smoking while they're searching his room and going through his
00:33:27.680
stuff. This is the point where, you know, China has just become very bold. They don't even care
00:33:33.020
about consequence because there isn't any, and they continue to do whatever they are to us Westerners
00:33:38.880
because, well, they can. And, uh, so bottom line with hotels, don't leave anything behind. Take
00:33:45.960
your valuables with you, especially if it's digital. If you're working for a big company,
00:33:49.500
don't hold any sensitive conversations in those rooms. Uh, leave that for outside. If there's,
00:33:55.820
you got to talk about something sensitive, go outside to talk about it. Uh, those are probably
00:34:00.120
my bigger recommendations and hopefully something new for, uh, for those listening.
00:34:04.660
Yeah. That's kind of counterintuitive because you would think I'm going to go to a room
00:34:07.620
where there's privacy, not to some public place to talk about discreet things.
00:34:14.100
Yeah, no, you're right. It's get outside. It's much different for people to, uh, you know,
00:34:18.800
collect your conversation when you're out in the open than it is if you're confined in a room,
00:34:24.060
you know? So especially when, obviously if there's microphones and cameras sitting there,
00:34:28.060
um, Oh, go ahead. Yeah, no, no. The only, the only other piece I'd add to this is you don't want
00:34:33.560
to be the guy that gets thrown in jail because people think you're a spy. So you don't
00:34:37.600
you don't want to actively come into a hotel room and start searching the place for these types of
00:34:41.780
things. It's something you just need to know that could possibly exist and remain normal. Remember
00:34:48.440
if they are watching you and you start acting a little strange, it might give them a reason
00:34:53.080
to arrest you for espionage or something. And you don't want that happening just because you're
00:34:57.660
looking out for your own safety. So it's better just to assume you're being watched, assume you're
00:35:01.520
being listened to and, uh, hold those conversations for a later date. Awesome. So you had some,
00:35:06.080
uh, James Bond S like tactics on how to detect if someone has been tampering with your stuff,
00:35:11.960
I guess for your buddy, it was pretty easy because it smelled like smoke. Um, but are there some little
00:35:16.540
subtle things you can do to, uh, so, you know, when you come back to your room, like, okay,
00:35:21.360
someone's been messing with my stuff. Well, yeah, I always, the first thing I'd always push is
00:35:26.600
technology, right? I mean, there's, there's a, an app out there called photo trap and that thing,
00:35:32.360
you take a picture of your room before you leave, you take a picture when you come back
00:35:36.400
and it animates anything that's been moved. If a drawer is left slightly open, you'll see that
00:35:41.780
drawer open and close, open and close, open and close. If a book or your laptop or anything that
00:35:46.460
you've left behind has been shifted at all, you're going to see it shift. You're going to see it that
00:35:51.800
it's something has been disturbed. Um, but if you're not using technology, then there's some
00:35:58.800
physical things you can do. One, you want to set up a centric rings that signal you that something
00:36:03.740
has been, um, displaced first, starting with your door. Um, one, put the tag on the door that says
00:36:11.800
do not disturb right now. You cannot assume that, that, that does not mean people are going to go
00:36:17.740
in and out while you're gone. They will go in if they want. So, but what you can do is set that do
00:36:22.920
not disturb up to where it kind of closes between the door and the door frame. And if the door is opened,
00:36:28.260
then it'll hang freely. And when you come back to your door, you'll see that free hanging,
00:36:33.460
um, do not disturb sign. And that's your first signal that, all right, somebody may have gone
00:36:40.020
in my room or somebody came by your door and actually pulled it out from between the door
00:36:45.200
and the door frame while hanging on the knob. Um, but at least it's a signal to start paying
00:36:50.420
attention when you enter your room, things you can do inside your room is one, keep it simple,
00:36:55.060
keep it discreet, keep it, uh, common to the environment that you're in. You don't want to put,
00:36:59.500
you know, you know, the old school stuff of, uh, tape across a door or something stupid like that.
00:37:04.580
Cause that looks like espionage and you could get arrested or whatever they want to do. You got to
00:37:08.760
remember you're in someone else's country and someone else's domain, they can do whatever they
00:37:11.900
want to use. So keep it natural to the environment, keep it simple so that you can remember it. Um,
00:37:17.820
so I like Cardinal bearings. Cardinal bearings is just a North, South, East, West, right? So I can
00:37:24.220
take a coffee cup, I can put the handle, uh, maybe Cardinal bearing North and put it right next to the
00:37:31.460
USB ports, um, near my laptop because I have to leave it behind cause I don't want to carry it all
00:37:36.200
day while I'm doing tourist stuff. Um, and you're putting them by the USB ports because that's going
00:37:42.220
to be the point of attack. Um, and then you're putting the coffee cup there with the handle pointed
00:37:47.320
North. When you come back, you'll know, okay, if that's even slightly off, you'll know it.
00:37:51.840
Um, or you can use, I like to use my thumb as like a guiding measurement. So I know I've got my
00:37:57.100
laptop is one thumb length away from the desk edge. I know that the, uh, coffee cup is one thumb away
00:38:06.360
from my laptop, your thumb, it's your measurement. No one can change that. When you come back, you put
00:38:12.740
your thumb back down. Yep. My tip of my thumb is barely touching my laptop. I know that's
00:38:17.320
that it hasn't been shifted the coffee cup, the water bottle, all these things you can do around
00:38:22.340
the room. You're keeping it natural to the environment. You're keeping it simple so you
00:38:26.120
can remember it. If you set things up in weird ways, the odds are you won't remember exactly
00:38:31.400
how it was set up. It's not until you get back, you go, wait a minute. Was that, you know, was that
00:38:35.680
tag actually hanging to the left or to the right? Um, those are just some simple things, but the book
00:38:41.520
definitely covers more. Yeah. Yeah. Um, speaking of, you mentioned that app, um, or just digital
00:38:46.840
security in general, right? You'd mentioned that the USB ports, the point of attack. What can you
00:38:50.860
do? Are there some simple things that people can do to keep their phones and computers safe from
00:38:55.120
hackers? Um, yeah, I mean, password, password, password, we hear it all the time, but the, the
00:39:02.760
philosophy that we push, um, and no one likes to hear it, but the longer the password, the better
00:39:08.600
and, and longer passwords, uh, have been very effective against, uh, the different attacks
00:39:16.060
out there. You know, you, the, the, we, we all think there's a hacker sitting in the shadows of
00:39:20.760
his basement and he's just going to town with his keyboard trying to get into things, but they're
00:39:25.760
actually have evolved, you know, they're creating programs or viruses that do a lot of work for
00:39:30.280
them. And, um, and then they run these programs or viruses against, you know, hundreds of usernames
00:39:39.280
and passwords at the same times. Some of this, some of these programs they create can actually run,
00:39:45.020
you know, 500 characters per second against a password. So that's, you know, if you look at it
00:39:52.140
like a dial on a safe, if I'm running the dial 500 different of the possibilities on there per second,
00:39:59.320
uh, and there's only three combinations, I'm probably going to get in pretty quick. So if
00:40:04.200
you only have three digits in your password, then they're probably going to get in pretty quick.
00:40:08.980
So the idea is, is if the longer the password, the longer it takes for someone to get in,
00:40:14.760
especially these, these bots, you hear them called bot attacks and these bots go out and they
00:40:20.660
run against the username and they run against the password simultaneously, hundreds of characters
00:40:25.720
per second and try to figure it out. But a lot of times they're programmed to only stay on target
00:40:31.300
for 15 minutes, uh, give or take. So if you create a password that is 22 characters or more,
00:40:38.780
you're going to actually, it would take a bot attack approximately. If you do the math calculation
00:40:44.700
on a 22 character password, somewhere around 15 to 20 years that you've just increased time on target
00:40:51.340
for a bot attack. Um, that takes me to usernames, your username. Sometimes we feel like it has to be
00:40:58.940
your email address. Not always. You should treat your username like a second password. So if you have
00:41:05.140
the ability to put in whatever username you want, don't use your email address. Don't use things that
00:41:10.740
are common to you because that's the easiest thing to figure out. And that's the first step in cracking
00:41:14.840
the code. Your username needs to be looked at as a password. So make it something, uh, not necessarily
00:41:21.840
complicated, but make it long. Peas and carrots, uh, can be a username. And then a 22 character
00:41:28.780
password doesn't have to be crazy symbols and all this and that. Because if a bot attack is running
00:41:34.560
all the characters, it doesn't matter what symbol you use on the keyboard. It's going to run through
00:41:39.340
it anyway. So you just want to make it long. Um, and you don't want any, your username or your
00:41:44.660
password to be associated to your personal life or things that most, um, you know, smarter systems
00:41:52.440
are going to leverage first, you know, birthdays. We've already heard all that stuff, but that's the
00:41:56.880
general philosophy. Yeah. And I guess you want to keep away the personal stuff too, because people
00:42:01.160
could use social engineering to figure out your password or username. I guess, uh, people have done
00:42:06.840
that world. They'll call customer service and say, Oh, I don't know my path. I forgot my password,
00:42:11.780
but here's my birthday because you put your birthday out there somewhere. Exactly. Birthdays,
00:42:17.840
social security numbers. I mean, you name it. And these days, you know, social engineering has gone
00:42:22.900
more from the phone call to, you know, spear phishing or phishing attack. So now you've got them sending
00:42:28.520
out, um, you know, emails that look like they're from the company they work for. You know, if let's say
00:42:36.520
it's a, you know, a big box retailer, um, and their logo happens to look like a target,
00:42:41.460
uh, you, they send out a mass emails to every employee. It looks official and it has a little
00:42:48.500
spot on there for username and password. So if you can get 25% of the company to click on that email
00:42:54.440
and then another 25% to put in their username and password, well then you inevitably end up owning
00:43:00.780
that company. Um, if you know what you're doing, so you never want to fall for that kind of stuff.
00:43:05.740
Uh, you never want to give up. If you're getting stuff via email that is asking for usernames and
00:43:11.380
passwords, um, pick up the phone, call and verify that it's real or not, but more than likely
00:43:17.900
reputable companies are not going to be sending out that kind of, um, those kinds of emails to get
00:43:24.900
you to do stuff like that. They just don't. So don't click on anything that you don't recognize
00:43:29.120
and sure as hell don't put a username and password into anything that you, that you should or shouldn't.
00:43:34.600
Awesome. Well, Clint, this has been a great conversation. We've just gotten given people
00:43:38.360
a taste of what you'll find in a hundred deadly skills. We didn't talk about what you do, uh, if
00:43:43.240
you ever get kidnapped and how to escape. There's information there about escape and evade, how to
00:43:48.720
track someone, a lot of great, cool Jason Bourne stuff, but, uh, where can people find out more about
00:43:53.920
the book and about your work? Uh, you can go to a hundred deadly skills doc. Um, that'll guide you
00:43:59.760
to all of our social media. And there's a place to sign up for our newsletter because we'll be doing
00:44:04.520
updates on potential digital series of each skill so that people can actually watch how to do this
00:44:10.860
type of stuff. Um, vice read about it. So hundred deadly skills.com. We'll, uh, get them to everything
00:44:16.780
else. All right. Well, Clint Emerson, thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure.
00:44:19.760
Hey, thanks Brett. And keep up the good work. Thank you. Our guest day was Clint Emerson. He's
00:44:24.340
the author of the book, 100 deadly skills, the seal operatives guide to eluding pursuers,
00:44:28.600
evading capture and surviving any danger situation. It's available on amazon.com. Go out there and get
00:44:33.860
it. It's just, you'll, you're going to have a lot of fun with this book. You can also find out
00:44:37.260
more information about the book at 100 deadly skills.com. Well, that wraps up another edition of
00:44:45.320
the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice. Make sure to check out the art of
00:44:49.280
manliness website at art of manliness.com. And if you enjoy this podcast, I'd really appreciate it
00:44:53.460
if you give us a review on iTunes or Stitcher, whatever it is used to listen to the podcast
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really helped us out a lot by getting the word out about the podcast, as well as giving us feedback
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on how we can improve the show. Thank you so much for your support. Until next time, this is Brett