The Art of Manliness - #146： Deadly Navy SEAL Skills Every Man Should Know

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. So a little

00:00:18.880 over a year ago, our illustrator, Ted Slampiak, been to the site, you've probably seen his

00:00:22.240 illustration, really talented guy. He emailed me and said, Brett, look, I'm working on this

00:00:25.860 new project, so I'm not going to be able to work on as many projects for you. And I was

00:00:30.000 like, well, what's the project? And he said, it's this book of Navy SEAL skills on how to

00:00:35.320 make improvised weapons, how to pick locks, how to evade someone in traffic, how to hide

00:00:41.600 things and even kill people. And I was like, this sounds like the coolest thing in the world.

00:00:47.260 And I was like, yeah, he's like, yeah, it's really cool. And even like my illustrations

00:00:50.240 have to be approved by the government before we can publish it. I'm like, this is awesome.

00:00:53.740 You have to let me know about it when it comes out. Well, he did. And the book is out. It's

00:00:58.820 called 100 Deadly Skills, The SEAL Operative's Guide to Eluding Pursuers, Evading Capture and

00:01:04.100 Surviving Any Dangerous Situation. And the author of it is Clint Emerson, and he worked with Ted

00:01:09.660 to come out with this book. And it's an awesome book. It is a lot of fun. It's just cool, Jason

00:01:14.960 Bourne stuff. Even if you don't have to ever use it, you feel good or feel cool knowing that

00:01:19.860 you know how to do this stuff if you ever had to. Today on the podcast, Clint and I discuss

00:01:24.660 these 100 Deadly Skills, why a civilian should even know how to make an anal concealment. 0.96

00:01:30.960 Why is that? Why should we know that? We just talked about some other great, cool Jason Bourne,

00:01:35.540 James Bond, Navy SEAL skills. A lot of fun stuff on the podcast with a lot of useful, practical

00:01:40.960 takeaway information. You can start incorporating in your daily life to have more situational awareness

00:01:45.340 and to protect you and your loved ones. So without further ado, 100 Deadly Skills with Clint Emerson.

00:01:59.460 Clint Emerson, welcome to the show.

00:02:01.880 Hey, thanks, Brett. It's great to meet you. Great site. Love your stuff.

00:02:05.240 Thank you so much. So your book is 100 Deadly Skills. It's illustrated by A1 favorite Ted Slampiak.

00:02:12.760 But before we get into the details of the books, this is fun. We're going to talk about some really

00:02:16.380 cool Jason Bourne stuff today. Let's talk a bit about your background. How did you go from becoming

00:02:23.740 a Navy SEAL, transitioning to running a security consulting company?

00:02:30.880 Well, I think becoming a SEAL started just like a lot of guys where as they were a kid, they probably

00:02:38.020 met a SEAL, saw something on TV, read a book. Something usually triggers that. For me, I grew up overseas in

00:02:46.240 Saudi Arabia. I was there from the second grade all the way to high school. And I was traveling through Frankfurt

00:02:51.940 with my family on a vacation back to the States. And at the Frankfurt Airport, at the bar,

00:03:00.060 we were waiting on a flight. And I was probably nine, 10 years old. And at the bar, there was a guy

00:03:06.660 with a, you know, like a black polo on. And I could see a tattoo kind of hanging out from his sleeve on

00:03:12.780 his left arm. And so I asked, you know, being a curious kid is like, what's that? He said, it's a

00:03:19.260 trident. So what's a trident? He said, it represents, you know, a SEAL, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he

00:03:23.400 kind of gave me the breakdown. Eventually, he was like, where are you from, kid? I'm like, I live in

00:03:28.420 Saudi. And so because I kept on asking about like, well, what do these SEALs do? And finally, he gave

00:03:34.880 me a little snippet that stuck in my head forever. And that was, well, you know, bomb Libya, right? 0.72

00:03:41.800 And I was like, yeah, yeah, because I was living in Saudi. And Vice President George Bush at the time

00:03:45.820 came in country and said, we're going to have C-130s in case they retaliate into Saudi Arabia on Americans.

00:03:51.060 Um, but long story short, he gave me a story about how the SEALs went in, took out the anti-aircraft

00:03:58.520 guns so that the B-111s could come in nice and low, drop bombs and pull out. It made sense to me as a

00:04:05.580 child. Then later, the funny part is, is I get finally through SEAL training and end up at SEAL team

00:04:12.800 three, which at the time focused primarily on the Middle East. Um, and I started looking through the

00:04:18.480 archives, talking to guys who'd been around for a while and asked them about that particular mission.

00:04:23.460 Well, they were like, yeah, we never, no, nobody here ever did that. So I was like, huh, well, maybe it's out

00:04:28.580 at, you know, one of the more, um, discrete commands, you know, like SEAL team six. Uh, you know, eventually I

00:04:36.480 end up at SEAL team six. So then I do the same thing. I start asking around and, uh, no one has any record

00:04:45.760 of any kind of op like that ever taking place. And I guess the point is, is yeah, it was sparked by

00:04:51.580 probably a fraudulent operation that never happened, but it stuck in my head forever. Um,

00:04:57.640 but that's where my career began. So it's actually kind of funny. Um, and then, you know, while I've

00:05:04.420 been, you know, while I did my 20 years towards the end, I, you know, you see a lot of guys start to

00:05:09.600 get out early and they end up doing contract work in Iraq or in Afghanistan wearing body armor. And

00:05:14.640 some of them get to do some fun stuff, but overall it's, it's nothing, it's nothing glamorous.

00:05:19.080 It's nothing that you really want to be doing, but the money's great. So a lot of guys kind of

00:05:22.920 fall into doing that type of stuff. And, uh, I knew I was a career guy. I was going to do my 20 and

00:05:27.820 then, you know, figured out from there, but I kind of wanted to go into more of the corporate side,

00:05:32.840 um, doing higher level stuff that, uh, consists of crisis management policies, workplace violence

00:05:39.040 policies and, uh, and then educating workforces. So we basically, now I'm building this stuff

00:05:46.400 that's a policy driven. And then you take that policy, you turn it into workforce education

00:05:52.220 via e-learning or videos, and you push it out via their, uh, whatever their platforms are,

00:05:58.200 their servers or whatever they have in place, the infrastructure. So I could have never predicted

00:06:02.840 doing that, but I wanted to do something a little smarter. I really didn't want to, uh,

00:06:06.360 be standing on a wall in Iraq making 500 bucks a day. Um, so I really started investing in myself

00:06:12.100 towards the end of my career and then set everything up so that I could get out and start

00:06:17.460 paying myself the day that I got out vice what a lot of guys either don't have a plan,

00:06:23.040 didn't have time to make a plan, or they just get out and they go with whatever, whatever their

00:06:27.980 buddies are doing. And, uh, so I kind of forecasted a little bit and put some things together so that

00:06:33.980 I could, uh, do my own thing and hence escape the wolf. All right. So escape the wolf. You guys go

00:06:38.300 into corporations, help them with their digital security. Also just travel security.

00:06:44.200 Yeah, we've, we've put together, um, crisis management plans and then educated, you know,

00:06:49.040 the workforce on what to do during natural disasters, what to do during active shooters. I mean,

00:06:54.660 you name it. Um, but we've also do, uh, network analysis, vulnerability assessments. Um,

00:07:01.860 but our unique capability that's been really attractive to fortune 500s is, uh, our ability

00:07:08.160 to really get in clandestinely, like literally breaking in using criminal tactics, uh, and

00:07:13.780 then taking and taking over their networks. So if we can just get to one computer that's

00:07:18.560 on their network, then we take it over. And then, and then at the end, we give a, a nice

00:07:24.200 big, thick vulnerability report and then tell them how to fix those problems. So it emulates,

00:07:29.660 um, bad guys, it emulates a foreign Intel service. It, it also, uh, emulates an insider attack,

00:07:36.960 like something like Sony. So, you know, if, if something can be done at the computer inside

00:07:42.320 the office, then we will do that along with, you know, your typical remote attacks, you

00:07:47.680 know, from outside the fence line, trying to get in, you know, from the internet. Um, so

00:07:52.420 we kind of do it all in one shot, um, which gives them, you know, facility threat assessments,

00:07:58.160 where are all their gaps and loopholes. Can I just, you know, a lot of times we get in

00:08:02.400 during the day with, you know, a coffee in one hand and my cell phone up to my ear and

00:08:06.620 somebody will just hold the door open for me and I'm in. Um, so we put it all together,

00:08:11.660 social engineering, facility assessments, cyber, and then give them a big fat report.

00:08:16.540 That's awesome. Well, let's talk about your book, uh, 100 deadly skills. Um, so Ted Slampiak,

00:08:21.380 he does the illustrations of our art of manliness. Um, and when he told me about this project,

00:08:25.660 he's like, yeah, I'm working on this project with this Navy SEAL. This is like about a year

00:08:28.780 ago. And it's like, he's like a hundred skills, like Navy SEAL skills. And like, it has to be

00:08:33.280 approved by the government. And I was like, wait a minute, what kind of stuff are you putting in a

00:08:37.420 book that needs to be approved by the government, uh, first? So, I mean, what kind of stuff, like,

00:08:42.220 I'm curious, like what, what things in the book needed to get approval from the government

00:08:46.500 before you published it?

00:08:47.460 Well, really it's, it's, it's a much bigger level than that. Um, ever since, uh, No Easy

00:08:54.520 Day came out by Mark Owen, um, that book kind of created a firestorm with, uh, an approval system

00:09:04.680 that no one knew about prior to Mark releasing his book. So everyone else prior to him had written

00:09:12.680 books, put them out, published them. Nobody really had any clue that, wait a minute, I'm supposed

00:09:17.440 to get this stuff reviewed by the Pentagon before I publish. Well, you know, Mark, unfortunately

00:09:25.580 for him, he, uh, he ended up being the guy that, you know, took, took a barrage of fire,

00:09:30.040 federal investigations, and probably a whole lot of other stuff that we don't know about

00:09:33.400 because his information was, uh, you know, it was light. It wasn't anything that anyone tells

00:09:40.200 you before you get out or you retire, Hey, make sure you do this. Um, so, uh, first, I mean,

00:09:46.320 the book, every, every person in the military, it's highly recommended that if they're going

00:09:51.060 to put something on paper or if they're going to put a PowerPoint brief together to go brief

00:09:55.680 a bunch of people that it gets reviewed by the Pentagon. And, uh, now, I mean, I highly

00:10:00.700 recommend it. So it's just more about as a former military guy or retired guy doing the

00:10:07.300 right thing, making sure that what you put in the book isn't somehow sensitive. Um, and that's

00:10:12.920 not up to the individual's discretion. That's up to the government's discretion. So I had

00:10:17.520 to turn all hundred skills in and have them review each and every one along with the narratives,

00:10:23.380 the illustrations, you name it. And then they actually, from the Pentagon, they send it to

00:10:28.480 every agency you ever, you know, stood at. So it went to Naval Special Warfare. It went

00:10:35.360 to SEAL Team 6. It went to SOCOM. It went to the NSA. So any place I ever hung out, uh, it is

00:10:41.360 the Pentagon's responsibility to disseminate it out to everyone. And then everyone gets

00:10:46.240 to take a look at it and put their two cents in on whether they think something is sensitive

00:10:50.120 or not. But the review process is there, um, for that reason to protect information that

00:10:56.420 could possibly be sensitive or classified. That is, you know, sometimes to a former or retired

00:11:03.100 guy, maybe something innocent that he just didn't think that was all that sensitive, but

00:11:07.360 turns out it is. And, uh, that's kind of the, that's kind of the rules now that, uh, you know,

00:11:13.460 since no easy day. Gotcha. That makes sense. All right. So, uh, in your book, you talk about

00:11:17.980 everything from how to have situational awareness, how to make improvised gas masks. Uh, I'm just

00:11:24.840 curious, like, why do you think, you know, why should civilians know this stuff? Like how to make

00:11:28.740 improvised weapons and anal concealments? Um, because like whenever we've done content about sort of

00:11:34.620 tactical things, like how to pick locks or escape zip ties, you always get a lot of

00:11:38.640 guff from people like, Oh, well now the bad guys know this. And law enforcement officers say,

00:11:43.100 well, you're just making our job harder now. Um, why, why do you think civilians should know this

00:11:46.960 sort of thing? Uh, first I think, you know, with, with the increased number of attacks, whether it

00:11:53.380 be lone wolves, inspired tire, terrorism, um, you name it, everything that's been going on lately,

00:11:58.800 whether you're on a train, you know, in France or you're in your office building, you know,

00:12:03.500 in DC, uh, there's always that possibility of, uh, a good day going really, really bad. And our

00:12:10.580 natural born instincts are great. Usually, uh, you've got something in your gut says, you know,

00:12:15.360 something's wrong here and, uh, you hopefully react, you react to that accordingly. Um, but a lot

00:12:22.140 of people don't, and it's getting to the point now where, you know, bad guys, uh, are becoming more

00:12:26.960 and more advanced. And so your natural born instincts are great, but you got to, uh, you got

00:12:32.880 out of, um, couple them with some good skills as well. So a lot of the skills in the book are

00:12:40.720 presented in an offensive manner, but it's, it's all about, you know, exposing the bad guy offense in

00:12:47.220 order to, you know, fortify, um, your personal defense. Um, and even give you some of those

00:12:54.500 offensive skills so that you can fight violence with violence. And, you know, as far as people,

00:13:00.540 you know, watching movies, reading books or playing games, and then leveraging that as an

00:13:04.680 excuse of why they go do bad stuff. The reality is, is if someone's going to go do something,

00:13:09.180 they're going to go do it. Um, and most of the time they're, uh, they might be, uh, leveraging some

00:13:16.280 of the information that's out there, but it's all over the internet these days. It's everywhere else.

00:13:20.380 Um, and I like to believe that more good people read books, uh, than bad people do. So, um, the more

00:13:28.980 well-educated, ready civilians there are out there to take on, you know, these, uh, encounters with the

00:13:37.640 random bad guy, I think the better. So you call a prepared civilian or prepared some person like a

00:13:43.560 violent nomad, which I thought was a cool, cool, uh, cool description there. Um, and it's funny,

00:13:49.040 you talk, you start off with the everyday carry kit and something we've talked about on the site

00:13:52.760 before, but what should be in an EDC for a violent nomad so that he's prepared in any sort of

00:13:59.140 situation? Um, you know, these things change day to day. I think a lot of times EDCs, uh, go hand

00:14:06.320 in hand with what you're wearing, what you're carrying. Um, you kind of have to tailor it each

00:14:10.860 day to whatever it is, uh, the environments that you might be visiting. Um, but overall, I mean,

00:14:16.580 if you're going to be traveling abroad or, you know, you might be put in kind of a high threat

00:14:20.600 situation at some point, you should always have the means of escape. Um, I'm a big proponent of

00:14:26.440 that. If, uh, if you can hide a key somewhere, uh, you know, handcuffed keys are readily available

00:14:32.040 all over the internet. If you can put a razor blade somewhere between the two of those, you can get out

00:14:38.020 of just about anything without knowing tricks. Um, if you look all the way back to, you know, 1921 Houdini's

00:14:45.980 manual of, uh, of escape, he didn't do it because he was, you know, obviously great at some kind of,

00:14:52.780 uh, you know, of all true magic. He was just, he was just good at escape because he was good at

00:14:57.160 hiding tools everywhere that he could leverage and use, uh, without anybody knowing. So it's really

00:15:03.560 nothing new or novel, but, you know, having, having some tools on you that give you the upper hand

00:15:09.420 when things go south. Um, you know, I like, you know, the zebra pens cause they're one,

00:15:15.660 they're cheap, but two, it's a steel barrel pen that you can buy it at any store. Um, but because

00:15:22.460 of the way it's designed, you can punch it right through plywood. Um, there's a, there's a myriad of

00:15:27.780 things I think that are common day items that everyone can utilize. You don't need to go spend

00:15:32.540 three, $400 on, you know, all the different, uh, items that I see online or, you know, different

00:15:38.140 sites, but, um, keeping it simple, I think too, is, is a, is a priority. Um, there's a point in which

00:15:44.380 you can be carrying a whole lot of stuff that just makes you look suspicious to begin with. And, uh,

00:15:48.840 the goal isn't to look like a bad guy. It's, uh, it's to just have what you need to, uh, increase

00:15:54.540 your odds of survivability. Yeah. I love, you had a section about the zebra pen, um, that it could be

00:15:59.700 turn, like you could punch it through plywood, which I was impressed with, but there's other

00:16:03.020 uses you do with that, uh, improvised weapon in a pinch. Correct. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean,

00:16:08.000 obviously if it can go through plywood, then it can go through, uh, you know, you know, I have

00:16:13.160 different points on there that if you're going to use a pen one, the grip, um, a lot of people think

00:16:17.820 that you got to have your thumb running parallel to the barrel of the, of the pen or a knife. The

00:16:22.820 reality is you want a nice fist grip. It can be overhand underhand, but, um, you know, and then that

00:16:28.200 way, when you do have to use it to stab the bad guy, uh, it doesn't slip or, or inevitably end up

00:16:35.540 on the ground. Um, and once you do it, you want to just keep going. And the reason I kind of talk

00:16:41.320 about the violent nomad, that's, that's, you know, good people using skills for good, not evil. And,

00:16:48.500 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

00:16:54.380 dealing with or else you're going to lose. So that's kind of the, the, you know, dovetails into

00:16:59.680 everything inside a hundred deli skills. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, in addition to the EDC, you also

00:17:05.520 recommend creating what you call the vehicle bolt bag. I think we've written about this before, but

00:17:08.900 can you give us the general idea of what a vehicle bolt bag and what sort of things you might want to

00:17:13.000 keep in it? Sure. A bolt bag is, uh, is really, you know, if crisis strikes you while you're out on

00:17:18.860 the road, you want to have an ability to, uh, you know, survive at least for a day. I mean,

00:17:24.060 depending on what you're doing, you may want to increase that. And it doesn't have to be a big

00:17:27.440 backpack. It's something small in nature, uh, a messenger bag, if you will, that can hold, you

00:17:33.300 know, water, some food, um, extra batteries and extra phone, um, all of the essentials that you

00:17:40.360 might need. If you, your vehicle turns upside down, you want everything for that bolt bag

00:17:45.720 compartmentalized into something. So it's not spread out. You have to assume worst case scenario

00:17:50.180 that if you get into an accident, stuff's all over the car. Um, you don't have to be collecting

00:17:56.240 it up. You want to be able to put the bag also somewhere that you can get to it. No matter

00:18:00.420 whatever the configuration of the vehicle is, you want to be able to grab it and get out of that

00:18:05.620 vehicle, um, as quickly as possible. And so the things that you need to have inside could be

00:18:11.920 warmies, you know, environmental type stuff. It could be, uh, survivability, all your life

00:18:17.400 sustainment, um, tools, you know, water, food, warmth, um, signal and signal these days is usually

00:18:24.560 cell phones, radios. Uh, if you're out in the middle of nowhere, having a spot or some kind of

00:18:29.760 GPS system on, um, you know, that, that can be tracked and you can be found. Um, there's a number

00:18:36.720 of things, but those would be probably the primary. Awesome. So one thing I've noticed in the

00:18:40.820 tactical world that often gets overlooked is fitness, right? There, there's a lot of content

00:18:46.220 about improving your, your self-defense, you know, you are, you know, unarmed defense using weapons,

00:18:52.600 blade or firearms, but really, really talk about fitness, but you have a whole set, you have a

00:18:56.440 section in there about the nomad workout. What sort of exercises do you recommend, uh, people using

00:19:02.380 to stay fit for fighting conditions? Um, yeah, I put the, uh, run fight run philosophy, which is

00:19:09.060 something that I do, um, you know, literally every day. And it's not about looking good in a mirror

00:19:15.620 or, you know, getting ripped, you know, the, the, the kind of the secondary results. Sure. You probably

00:19:21.960 look good in a t-shirt and you're probably, you know, can see your abs, but that's not the primary

00:19:26.240 reason. Primary reason is to give you functional strength that works when you are in the middle of

00:19:31.660 an attack. Um, so run, fight, run one in a fight. It's, it's great to have skills, but if the skills

00:19:39.300 aren't coupled with cardiovascular endurance, then you're probably going to run out of gas and you're

00:19:45.820 going to inevitably end up either losing or not having enough energy to get away from the problem

00:19:51.020 or the conflict. So you want to make sure that you have sprints included into your workouts. Hence

00:19:57.480 the reason you have the run aspect of run, fight, run. Now the fight, I like heavy bags. Um, you know,

00:20:04.040 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

00:20:10.640 thing, punching it, kicking it, kneeing it, whatever you need to do. Um, and over time you'll find out

00:20:16.020 that your punches, your kicks and your knees become a pretty darn swift. And, uh, so combining one minute

00:20:24.360 of fighting on a heavy bag with a sprint and then coming right back to that heavy bag and utilizing

00:20:31.220 it for squats, lunges. Um, if you just want to do, um, you know, heavy bag carries heavy bag on the

00:20:41.180 ground and also strike it from there and then do a sprint, but you just want to rotate between sprints

00:20:46.440 and some kind of fighting action on a, on a heavy bag or whatever you can get your hands on, um, back and

00:20:52.100 forth and then increase your times for both as you move through it each day so that you might start

00:20:58.180 out at a minute run in a minute fight, um, and go back and forth five to six times. And then, you

00:21:06.260 know, a month later you'll be, you know, going multiple minutes, which you want to work up to

00:21:11.220 about a three minute round, which in boxing is the average. So you'd three minutes on a heavy bag,

00:21:16.120 three minutes at a fast pace run and rotating back and forth between the two, switching up your bag

00:21:21.640 routine to either the hanging bag, the bag on the ground, or using that bag to do different lifts.

00:21:28.900 That's generally, that's generally the purpose so that if you do get into a fight, at least

00:21:33.260 cardiovascularly, you can maintain the fight and hopefully have enough gas to run away. Not just,

00:21:38.940 you don't want to stay engaged in it. You want to get away as soon as possible.

00:21:42.140 Yeah. Yeah. I love how simple and functional that is. So the one thing I want to talk about,

00:21:46.760 so we've had a lot of high profile mass shootings in the U S the past few years. And one thing I've

00:21:51.460 noticed, I think it's sort of disheartening is that whenever the news reports on them, I rarely

00:21:55.340 hear them getting experts on to talk to civilians on what you're supposed to do if you find yourself

00:22:02.360 in this sort of situation. Um, so what should you do if you find yourself in an active shooter situation?

00:22:11.660 Um, the philosophy that, you know, even with, uh, my company that we put,

00:22:16.560 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 1.00

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 0.95

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 0.96

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. 0.96

00:37:04.580 Cause that looks like espionage and you could get arrested or whatever they want to do. You got to 0.98

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

00:44:57.380 really helped us out a lot by getting the word out about the podcast, as well as giving us feedback

00:45:01.600 on how we can improve the show. Thank you so much for your support. Until next time, this is Brett

00:45:05.240 McKay telling you to stay madly.

The Art of Manliness - October 13, 2015

#146： Deadly Navy SEAL Skills Every Man Should Know

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