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Music.

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Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Self-Initiative Project Podcast.

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I’m your host, Jim O’Brien. Hey, and welcome to episode 18 of the Self-Initiative Project Podcast.

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You know, we are in 18 episodes, and obviously in the overall scheme of things,

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that’s not a lot of episodes of podcasts, especially when you compare us to

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someone like Joe Rogan, who’s got over 2,200 or something like that.

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And of course, in fairness, you know, he’s been doing this a little bit longer

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than we have. But even some of our competitors are up to 40 or 50 episodes now, and that’s fantastic.

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And look, at the end of the day, they’re not really competitors, right?

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It’s just that we’re all operating in the same space.

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And so if you’re listening to one or more of us, hopefully you’re getting that

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much more good information.

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And, you know, that’s been our, our sole goal from the get go is if we can just

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give one nugget of information and yes, I’ve, I say that a lot.

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If I can just give out one nugget of information that someone can take away

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and either think about further or better yet act upon than I’ve done my job.

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And that makes me very happy about we, what we’re doing here.

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And, you know, when I got started, I said, look, I want to do a podcast because,

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you know, I’ve got all this information rattling around in my head,

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you know, that I want to get out there.

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I think that can do some people a lot of good, hopefully, or a lot of people,

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some good, however you want to look at that.

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And so I wanted to start it. And I thought, you know, the pace of one a month

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would be good enough. And so, you know, now that we’ve been in it for 18,

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it’s like, well, it’s at times I wish that I could amp that up and do two a month.

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But, you know, and other times I wish it was more, you know,

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or less than one a month, you know, once every two months, because,

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you know, you get one done and then four weeks later, you’ve got a plan and

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have outlined to some degree the next one.

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And so, you know, I think we’re at a good pace.

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If I haven’t said it before, I work a full-time job. I’m in the user experience

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IT realm, and, you know, that’s what I do during the day.

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So, you know, it takes a lot of work, as many of you know, to do these things

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in post-production and editing, if nothing else, not to mention the arrangement

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for guests and getting an outline pulled together that you think may work on

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a topic that you want to talk about.

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So I think one a month works. So with that being said, you know,

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18 episodes doesn’t sound like a lot, but that’s a year and a half worth of podcasts for us so far.

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And so I think that’s a great achievement. So I want to thank you guys for listening in.

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Hopefully this isn’t the first one that you’re stopping off and listening to.

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If it is great, stick around, go back and listen to a few. We’ll reference a

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few during this session, I’m sure.

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But thank you guys. And look, if you are getting good information,

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please feel free to share this with your friends and family.

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And we want to thank you yet again.

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So this episode, we’re going to be talking about situational awareness and avoidance

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or avoiding an awareness.

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And, you know, in my mind, I think the two go together. You’ve got to have awareness,

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situational awareness, in order to know what to avoid.

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And so we’re going to touch upon those things this episode. So,

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you know, what is situational awareness?

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So it’s a combination of things. And, you know, I think the easiest way to describe

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it and the easiest way to also start working towards developing a situational

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awareness skill is to think of it three ways.

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In order to establish situational awareness, you’ve got to recognize or be familiar

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with what the baseline for some place is.

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And that’s first and foremost. So what is normal? What does normal look like?

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Whether it’s the restaurant, the church, the gym that you go to, whatever.

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What is the normal? What are the people doing? What do people look like?

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Who’s coming and going? Those sorts of things.

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Next, and most importantly, when you want to start paying attention and noticing

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when things might be out of place or go awry is just that. What anomalies are there?

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What things are out of place? And you’ll know things that are out of place by

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understanding what the baseline is and what’s normal for where you are.

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And then last but not least is when things are abnormal or out of place,

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having a game plan in place to deal with it.

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And that’s kind of the situational awareness in a nutshell.

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And so, you know, the outcropping of situational awareness is being able to know what to avoid or,

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you know, when you’re paying attention to things either directly around you

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or just information that you’re receiving, making the good sense decision to avoid them.

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And that’s the other piece of this, whether it’s listening, you know,

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for women, especially listening to that intuition.

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That’s a situational awareness in a sense, right? Pardon the pun.

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It’s spidey senses, right? listening to that, paying attention to that intuition.

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That intuition is probably right more often than it’s not.

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Making the decision not to walk down the dark alleyway,

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especially if there’s strange looking guys, people down there at night,

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even if it’s a shortcut to where it is you’re going, your destination,

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avoiding that dark alleyway, whatever the thing is, you’ve got to be situationally

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aware in order to be able to avoid the bad things that you might be heading into otherwise.

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And, you know, we talked about it in our episode 13, the importance of mindset

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and situational awareness is just a part of that mindset is being situationally

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aware means that you’ve in the mindset of being alert,

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paying attention, you know, you’ve

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heard the terms or maybe you haven’t of keeping your head on a swivel,

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watching what’s going on behind you,

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just being alert and paying attention to all things, whether you’re walking

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through the parking lot at the grocery store or the parking deck after a concert, whatever it is,

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paying attention, being alert, and then having a game plan and being able to

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react to that appropriately is really the foundational situational awareness.

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And, you know, a lot of people say, oh, it’s paranoia. It’s paranoia. It’s really not.

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Awareness, being alert, and more importantly, being prepared is nothing to do with paranoia.

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I mean, look, at the end of the day, and it’s a motto of the Self-Initiative

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Project, we’re all responsible for our personal safety and preparedness.

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And so situational awareness and avoidance is all part of that.

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And so it has nothing to do with paranoia. So what is situational awareness?

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Well, we’ve talked a little bit about it, about establishing baselines,

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what’s normal, looking for the things that are out of place,

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the anomalies, and then most importantly, having a game plan to deal with them

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or, you know, hopefully get away from them in the first place.

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So it’s paying attention to your surroundings, getting your bearings.

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For example, when you go into a restaurant or wherever it is,

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sitting where your back’s against the wall and or you’re facing the exit so

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you’ve got a good view of everything that’s going on around you is so important.

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And then taking mental notes. Again, even if you’re only in a place for a little

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while, say, to eat dinner,

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you kind of want to get a sense of what the baselines are, what the normal activities,

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who’s coming and going, what are they looking like, what are they dressed like,

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what’s their behavior like.

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All of these things can help paint the picture.

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And look, you know, we talk about guns. We talk about knives.

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We talk about pepper spray. Whatever self-defense, actual physical products

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there are, tools there are in the industry,

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I will argue that situational awareness and avoidance will keep you out of more

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trouble, keep you out of trouble more than any of those tools ever will.

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And arguably situational awareness and avoidance will keep you from ever having

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to escalate or move towards using any of those self-defense tools when it comes down to it.

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So, you know, I realized the title to this podcast was a little clickbaity.

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We called it the best self-defense tools to carry.

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Well, yeah, being situationally aware and then opting to avoid potentially bad

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situations are the two best self-defense tools that you can carry,

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meaning they’re in your head at all times and you can employ them at all times. And that’s important.

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You know, talking about baselines and looking for weird things,

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I’ll tell you a recent story that happened to me.

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I was at a major grocery store chain recently. It was one afternoon after work.

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I go in early and get off early. So it was probably midday or so, mid-afternoon or so.

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And I’m in this store in the checkout line. I’ve got a few things.

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And there was a person in front of me, and as it was becoming my turn to walk

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up to check out, I realized that this individual had come through the front

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door of the stores, and he was a younger gentleman,

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let’s say, and he looked completely out of place, and it was noticeable immediately.

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And the reason why it was primarily is because, you know, we’ve been having

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90, 95 degree days here, even though it’s the first to fall in Georgia.

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And yes, this was a couple of weeks ago. I understand that. But this cat came

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in and he was sweating profusely. He had, I think, gray or black,

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dark gray charcoal sweatpants on.

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And the thing that really set my spidey senses off, so to speak,

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my intuition off my this is out of place. This doesn’t look right.

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Is that this cat had a long sleeve, heavy winter jacket on.

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Now, it wasn’t a trench coat like he could have been hiding rifles underneath it.

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But he had a full on wintertime coat.

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The best way to describe it would be like a varsity letterman jacket,

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but heavy duty and certainly heavy for a 95 degree summer day.

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And this cat came in. He was a younger guy, probably in his early mid 20s.

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If I had to eyeball and guess, might be off, but came in and he was approaching

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the cashier at the line that I was in.

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And for those of you that don’t know, I carry, I have a concealed carry weapons

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permit. I’ve been carrying for a while and suffice it to say,

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I carry anywhere where I’m allowed to.

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In other words, I don’t carry schools, government buildings, things like that.

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But anytime else, if I’m not on the job for the most part, I’m carrying concealed.

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And so this, this guy comes in and it sets my alarms off and I’m watching him

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and he’s sweating profusely and rightly so, like he’s got sweatpants on this

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wintertime jacket on, but this is clearly out of place,

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especially given the outside winter weather that we’re experiencing here in Georgia right now.

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And I watched him and he got closer and closer.

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Well, he wasn’t saying anything. And I got so intently watching at him that

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the cashier, when I got up in line, she said, hello, how are you?

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Or something to that effect.

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And I didn’t respond to her initially because I was so finely tuned in on this kid.

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I was waiting to see what happened next and what I was going to need to do.

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And in the back of my head, I had already played through this scenario previously,

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but I had already played through it in the few seconds that all this was unwinding.

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Well, next thing I know, this kid is reaching into the pocket of his jacket,

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his left pocket of this jacket and I’m like, I,

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this, this could be the moment that I need to do something and I’m waiting and I feel like, you know,

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the tremendous amount of time is going by, but I’m sure it was just a few seconds

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in the overall scheme of thing. This kid puts his hand in his pocket,

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And from one moment, the hair literally is

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standing up on the back of my neck to he pulls out a credit card and I go completely

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relaxed in that moment in time to you have no idea how close things came to

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this kid’s not the smartest tool in the shed.

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Now thankfully that turned out to be nothing but

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i was aware enough to know who was

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coming in and out of the store and i was aware enough and

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situationally aware enough to notice that hey this kid is dressed certainly

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like an anomaly who wears sweatpants and a wintertime coat wintertime jacket

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on a 90 95 degree summer day in the state of georgia well evidently some kids do.

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So that’s the type of thing we’re talking about, you know, being aware enough

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to note things like that, understanding that when you go to the grocery store

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over the time, you have a pretty good sense of who comes and goes.

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And yeah, we all like to people watch, but you have a good sense of what’s normal

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for a location, a place that you go to, right?

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Especially if you’ve been there over time, like a grocery store or your gym

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or your church. so you can more easily spot things that stick out like sore

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thumbs to you. So this kid certainly fit that profile.

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Fortunately, it turned out not to be anything. I got all riled up, fired up for nothing.

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The good news is as I didn’t freeze, but I did become intently focused on him

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for those few seconds that transaction transpired.

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And fortunately, it was a credit card he pulled out of his pocket.

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So those are the sorts of things.

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That we’re talking about. You know, when you’re in a situation like that and

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you see something that doesn’t look right now, I did wait that out.

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I did wait to see what was going on. I was standing out and I was standing in

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line with some food on the belt.

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Yes, I could have just ran out the front door and left my stuff behind.

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I didn’t do that. In a lot of cases, you may be so inclined to do that and that’s okay.

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I mean, we need to make sure our egos are in check and that we don’t respond based on our ego.

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And so look, there is nothing emasculating or otherwise or anything cowardice about fleeing.

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If you’ve got a bad sense about things or you see something that’s completely out of whack,

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your goal should be to get out of there, especially when you’re with family

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or friends or children, more importantly, your goal should just be to get out and get away.

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And there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, look, it’s going to make you safer

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if you get away. And so what if it turns out to be nothing?

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I mean, worst case scenario, if you were having an interaction with someone

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or interaction with that person that came in and looked suspicious and you just

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got away or you said something off color to them to make it clear that you You

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don’t want them to come any closer to you.

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Worst case scenario is they’ll think, what was wrong with that rude person for that moment in time?

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But for you, it meant that you had an opportunity to get out and get out safely.

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And that’s what you should do all the time.

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So again, situational awareness is about paying attention and knowing what the

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normal state of things is being.

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Recognizing when there’s things out of place, anomalies, things that don’t make

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sense, Things that you know aren’t normally there, like some dude wearing a

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wintertime jacket on a 95-plus degree day, whatever it is.

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And then, most importantly, having a game plan in place.

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You may not have the training or be confident enough.

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To fight back or to engage us in a situation like that.

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And that’s okay. That’s more cause for you to be your primary action to be, to get out and get away.

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And that’s okay because, you know, being situationally aware and avoidance and

00:16:23.033 –> 00:16:28.873
getting away only gives you more time to go get that training and, and to do that training.

00:16:29.053 –> 00:16:33.653
So you don’t do become more confident. So if you do need to respond with self-defense

00:16:33.653 –> 00:16:40.633
tools like guns or knives or pepper spray or finger grips for home keys or whatever

00:16:40.633 –> 00:16:42.313
it is you’ve bought for yourself,

00:16:42.553 –> 00:16:48.133
it’s okay so long as you go and seek the training and you’ve taken time to get

00:16:48.133 –> 00:16:52.013
the training and you feel more confident that if you had to engage,

00:16:52.033 –> 00:16:53.353
you could and fight back.

00:16:53.473 –> 00:16:57.333
Otherwise, your primary goal should be to get out of there. A lot of the times

00:16:57.333 –> 00:17:00.633
when you hear about situational awareness, it’s about hearing know,

00:17:00.733 –> 00:17:03.713
hearing the story of when you go to the restaurant, you should always sit with

00:17:03.713 –> 00:17:07.193
your back to the wall and be aware of all the exits,

00:17:07.573 –> 00:17:11.473
et cetera, and be sitting where you’re facing the primary entrance.

00:17:11.473 –> 00:17:13.633
So you’re aware of everything that’s going on.

00:17:13.713 –> 00:17:17.153
You absolutely should, but that’s not the only thing you should be doing.

00:17:17.813 –> 00:17:23.973
When you do sit towards the primary entrance and exit, monitoring that is not

00:17:23.973 –> 00:17:25.473
the only thing you should be doing.

00:17:25.693 –> 00:17:29.733
You should, for example, if you go to a restaurant, whether it’s by yourself,

00:17:29.873 –> 00:17:34.453
your significant other, or your family, you should sit in a way that allows

00:17:34.453 –> 00:17:38.113
you to see the greatest amount of space around you.

00:17:38.553 –> 00:17:43.193
You should be taking note of how many people are working behind the bar.

00:17:44.035 –> 00:17:50.415
How many waitstaff members there are, potentially how many people are in the place overall.

00:17:50.715 –> 00:17:54.835
Most importantly, you should have already taken a note of where all the exits

00:17:54.835 –> 00:17:57.895
are, so you know where to go should things head south.

00:17:58.135 –> 00:18:02.435
You might even take it to the extent that for the tables that are immediately

00:18:02.435 –> 00:18:05.955
around you, maybe you’re identifying who’s there, what they’re wearing,

00:18:06.055 –> 00:18:08.755
what their age is, what their race is, whatever,

00:18:09.315 –> 00:18:13.675
because you never know what degree of information you’ll need to recall at a

00:18:13.675 –> 00:18:15.915
later time, especially if something goes wrong.

00:18:16.195 –> 00:18:19.635
Anyone that comes in, you want to be paying attention to them because,

00:18:19.775 –> 00:18:23.955
again, everybody’s going to fit kind of this baseline, kind of this normalcy layer.

00:18:24.215 –> 00:18:27.815
And anything that doesn’t fit that, those are the things that you should alert

00:18:27.815 –> 00:18:32.135
to. And that’s kind of the basis of situational awareness.

00:18:32.715 –> 00:18:37.235
And so there’s a lot of good articles out there online, as there are a lot of

00:18:37.235 –> 00:18:39.555
things on situational awareness.

00:18:39.815 –> 00:18:43.915
And so one of the things you’ll see is some people suggesting activities that

00:18:43.915 –> 00:18:47.515
you can do to help bolster your situational awareness capabilities.

00:18:48.055 –> 00:18:51.695
And so I won’t go into all of those. I don’t know them all myself,

00:18:51.695 –> 00:18:54.395
but I do know a few that I wanted to share with you now.

00:18:54.875 –> 00:18:58.115
Some of these you can do on your own and with your family.

00:18:58.235 –> 00:19:02.055
It’s even fun to engage. You can even engage your children with them to kind

00:19:02.055 –> 00:19:06.035
of get them thinking that way that they need to be paying attention to what’s

00:19:06.035 –> 00:19:07.475
going on around them, etc.

00:19:07.795 –> 00:19:11.175
And then, you know, if you train in martial arts or self-defense,

00:19:11.475 –> 00:19:14.555
there’s a couple of things, at least a couple of things you could do.

00:19:14.935 –> 00:19:19.015
Or if you’re instructing a self-defense martial arts class, there’s a couple

00:19:19.015 –> 00:19:23.835
of things that you can do within the context of those classes to help encourage.

00:19:24.835 –> 00:19:26.155
Learning situational awareness.

00:19:26.335 –> 00:19:29.335
And that will help teach situational awareness. So,

00:19:30.063 –> 00:19:34.703
And these may all have names in the industry. I’m not aware of them,

00:19:34.723 –> 00:19:36.643
but these are just a couple that I like.

00:19:36.783 –> 00:19:42.363
So the first one is this idea that you show. Of course, this works better if

00:19:42.363 –> 00:19:43.863
you’re doing it with someone else.

00:19:44.023 –> 00:19:48.223
But the first idea is that you look at a photo of a scene, whether it’s a car

00:19:48.223 –> 00:19:53.663
wreck accident, maybe it’s just an office scene, or maybe it’s a murder scene

00:19:53.663 –> 00:19:55.623
or a suicide scene. You don’t know, right?

00:19:56.083 –> 00:20:01.163
It could be a photographic or it just could be a picture, a graphic of a scene.

00:20:01.283 –> 00:20:06.303
And what you do is you want to show this to an individual or to yourself for

00:20:06.303 –> 00:20:07.923
60 seconds, only a minute.

00:20:08.323 –> 00:20:13.163
And you want to try to remember and memorize as much as you can about that photo

00:20:13.163 –> 00:20:15.803
or that scene as you can in that 60 seconds.

00:20:16.183 –> 00:20:20.303
And then you’re going to turn that photograph upside down if you’re doing it

00:20:20.303 –> 00:20:23.783
to yourself or take it away from the individual you’re showing it to.

00:20:23.783 –> 00:20:26.383
And there’s a couple of ways you can do this.

00:20:26.523 –> 00:20:31.963
You can ask them specific questions that they need to be able to give you specific

00:20:31.963 –> 00:20:36.503
answers for and hopefully it’s exactly as it was in the photograph or graphic

00:20:36.503 –> 00:20:39.083
or you can just ask them to list

00:20:39.083 –> 00:20:43.943
out as many facts and details as they can recall from what they just saw.

00:20:44.423 –> 00:20:49.243
And the goal of this, especially over time, is to become more observant,

00:20:49.283 –> 00:20:52.283
to pay closer attention, to look at the details,

00:20:52.543 –> 00:20:56.043
like what time the hands on the clock were set in the office scene,

00:20:56.123 –> 00:21:01.443
for example, or what part of the car was broken off in the car accident that

00:21:01.443 –> 00:21:06.463
was sitting in the middle of the road, or how many victims were involved. Whatever it is.

00:21:07.189 –> 00:21:11.449
The goal is to teach you to look for those details and to be paying more and

00:21:11.449 –> 00:21:16.109
more attention to the details because that’s only going to help build your situational

00:21:16.109 –> 00:21:18.069
awareness capabilities, right?

00:21:18.569 –> 00:21:23.289
And again, you can do that with yourself. You can do that with your significant

00:21:23.289 –> 00:21:28.729
other or friend. And you can even do it with your children. It’s a fun memorization,

00:21:29.149 –> 00:21:32.009
being detail-oriented game with your children.

00:21:32.369 –> 00:21:35.969
So that’s the first one. And you can do that with a picture,

00:21:36.269 –> 00:21:39.489
a graphic, or you can actually take objects,

00:21:40.209 –> 00:21:44.289
random objects from around the house, the garage, whatever, lay them out on

00:21:44.289 –> 00:21:49.489
the table, give whoever’s playing along with you 60 seconds to look at them

00:21:49.489 –> 00:21:54.669
all, and then cover them up and then do the same thing. Take the same approach.

00:21:55.429 –> 00:22:01.589
Either ask specific questions about what they just saw or ask them to list as

00:22:01.589 –> 00:22:06.969
many accurate details as they possibly can about the objects that they just saw.

00:22:07.729 –> 00:22:14.429
And that’s a great exercise to start thinking more about situational awareness

00:22:14.429 –> 00:22:20.049
and get you tuned in to what you’re looking at and the details that you see.

00:22:20.049 –> 00:22:25.349
Another game, if you will, and we kind of touched upon this briefly in passing

00:22:25.349 –> 00:22:28.929
previously, but another game is when you go somewhere like a restaurant,

00:22:28.929 –> 00:22:33.969
and again, it’s for yourself or for your children. You can even play this with your children.

00:22:34.149 –> 00:22:39.509
When you go in, find out the number of exits in the place. Find out how many

00:22:39.509 –> 00:22:40.949
people are behind the bar.

00:22:41.149 –> 00:22:43.869
Who’s sitting at the bar? How many people were sitting at the bar?

00:22:44.049 –> 00:22:48.229
What race were they? What were they male or females?

00:22:48.569 –> 00:22:52.309
Were they young or old? Short, tall, heavy set, or skinny?

00:22:52.709 –> 00:22:59.449
Whatever details that you want to ask about, go in with the goal of being as

00:22:59.449 –> 00:23:07.149
observant as you possibly can to make note of and remember as many details as you possibly can about

00:23:07.209 –> 00:23:09.849
the situation and scenario you walked into.

00:23:10.309 –> 00:23:13.829
And then when you leave that to go home, like let’s say you had a meal,

00:23:13.989 –> 00:23:18.129
when you go home in the car home or when you get home, now you can start playing

00:23:18.129 –> 00:23:22.129
the game and asking everybody in the family what it is they saw.

00:23:22.649 –> 00:23:26.249
And hopefully if everyone’s paying attention, somebody can actually.

00:23:27.264 –> 00:23:31.844
You know, make a statement and an observation of what was really there versus

00:23:31.844 –> 00:23:35.164
what may have been said as being seen.

00:23:35.444 –> 00:23:41.664
And again, the spirit of these games is just to get you thinking about details, paying attention.

00:23:42.364 –> 00:23:46.924
Being alert, focusing on the details, and then knowing that you’re accountable

00:23:46.924 –> 00:23:51.084
later for being able to say what those details were.

00:23:51.544 –> 00:23:55.844
And so that’s a couple of techniques you can do, whether you’re into self-defense or not.

00:23:55.944 –> 00:23:59.224
A couple that you can do if you’re taking self-defense classes that you can

00:23:59.224 –> 00:24:02.144
suggest to your instructor, or hopefully a couple of things,

00:24:02.364 –> 00:24:05.764
a couple of examples of your instructor, of what your instructor can do is,

00:24:05.924 –> 00:24:10.924
you know, we used to pair people up and it depended on how many folks were in class.

00:24:10.924 –> 00:24:13.824
And so I used to say, you know, pair up in threes, right?

00:24:14.404 –> 00:24:17.204
I guess you can’t really pair in threes, but it takes three people.

00:24:17.324 –> 00:24:21.524
And so the idea being is that, you know, a lot of times you’ll be doing shield

00:24:21.524 –> 00:24:24.204
attacks, whether you’re punching palm strikes, elbows,

00:24:24.484 –> 00:24:29.324
knees, kicking, whatever, you’ll have a shield holder whether it’s a kick shield

00:24:29.324 –> 00:24:34.164
or tombstone or whatever you’re punching on you’ll have the attacker so that’s

00:24:34.164 –> 00:24:38.684
two and so the idea is is that pretty typical at least in

00:24:39.064 –> 00:24:44.344
the krav maga world is that you’d have your pad holder and they would either

00:24:44.344 –> 00:24:49.404
be calling out attacks or the instructors just kind of set up the scenario and

00:24:49.404 –> 00:24:54.224
the attacker’s going to work on that put pad full out doing whatever strikes they’re doing,

00:24:54.664 –> 00:24:59.124
you know, singularly just, you know, intent on destroying that pad.

00:24:59.870 –> 00:25:05.310
But the person, the job of the third person is to stay behind the attacker.

00:25:05.490 –> 00:25:07.510
Of course, the attacker’s moving around too.

00:25:07.690 –> 00:25:12.550
So a little bit more advanced than perhaps level one. But the attacker’s moving

00:25:12.550 –> 00:25:14.990
around all the while the attacker’s on that pad.

00:25:15.230 –> 00:25:18.310
You want to have that third person come up behind the attacker.

00:25:18.490 –> 00:25:22.210
And at random times over their left shoulder or right shoulder,

00:25:22.350 –> 00:25:26.830
it doesn’t matter, hold up some count of fingers, whatever it is.

00:25:26.830 –> 00:25:30.030
And the goal is is that the attacker that’s all

00:25:30.030 –> 00:25:33.210
out focused on that pad beating beating the

00:25:33.210 –> 00:25:36.090
heck out of that pad is they’re going to see a hand

00:25:36.090 –> 00:25:39.530
held up and they’ve got to call out the numbers the number

00:25:39.530 –> 00:25:43.570
of fingers that they see it doesn’t matter on what side if you want to add a

00:25:43.570 –> 00:25:47.970
layer of whatever to it you can you can certainly make them do that but you

00:25:47.970 –> 00:25:52.590
know if the if the person behind the shield holder holds up three fingers over

00:25:52.590 –> 00:25:55.870
the right shoulder that attacker should be able to say he’s got three fingers

00:25:55.870 –> 00:25:57.910
up and keep going on that pad, right?

00:25:58.230 –> 00:26:03.170
The idea being is that, yes, you should be focused on destroying that pad as

00:26:03.170 –> 00:26:05.490
you normally would, but you should also.

00:26:06.170 –> 00:26:11.850
Have some sort and keep some sort of semblance of situational awareness because

00:26:11.850 –> 00:26:17.470
we all know in self-defense scenarios that it could be very likely that there’s multiple attackers.

00:26:17.670 –> 00:26:20.950
So that’s a good exercise to kind of instill that thought.

00:26:21.130 –> 00:26:25.150
It may catch them off guard at first. They may not be very good at first,

00:26:25.290 –> 00:26:30.910
but A, it’s going to make them start thinking about those things that they haven’t

00:26:30.910 –> 00:26:34.710
otherwise been thinking about, and B, it’s going to get them better prepared

00:26:34.710 –> 00:26:40.070
to recognize and to be paying attention to things that they’re not immediately focused on.

00:26:40.250 –> 00:26:44.570
The other thing that as an instructor you could do is while you’re teaching

00:26:44.570 –> 00:26:49.770
class, whether it’s technique or having them do free-form work on the shields

00:26:49.770 –> 00:26:52.950
or whatever, attacks, self-defense moves, whatever.

00:26:53.190 –> 00:26:56.770
You can just have somebody, obviously, you want to pre-plan it out ahead of

00:26:56.770 –> 00:27:03.050
time, but you can just have somebody walk in, either around or weave through

00:27:03.050 –> 00:27:06.030
the students in class wearing whatever they’re wearing,

00:27:06.250 –> 00:27:10.330
either hang out for a little bit, some period of time, and or just walk right

00:27:10.330 –> 00:27:13.090
back out of the room again as though they hadn’t been there.

00:27:13.350 –> 00:27:21.130
And then after the end of class, ask your students if they noticed anybody out

00:27:21.130 –> 00:27:24.370
of place in the room, if they noticed someone coming in.

00:27:24.510 –> 00:27:31.610
And then if they did notice, tell you about what they saw. What type was it, male or female?

00:27:31.910 –> 00:27:34.130
What race? What were they wearing?

00:27:34.470 –> 00:27:38.290
And, you know, give them some sense if they’re accurate or not.

00:27:38.650 –> 00:27:40.670
But let them tell that story.

00:27:40.930 –> 00:27:45.810
And again, the goal is maybe they didn’t pay attention. Maybe they didn’t see it.

00:27:46.538 –> 00:27:50.418
But the idea is that they need to be thinking about those things.

00:27:50.598 –> 00:27:53.298
It instills the fact that they need to be thinking about those things,

00:27:53.478 –> 00:27:55.158
dare I say, worried about those things.

00:27:55.338 –> 00:27:59.778
And they need to be better paying better attention because at the end of the

00:27:59.778 –> 00:28:04.158
activity, they know they’re going to be accountable for explaining,

00:28:04.578 –> 00:28:06.418
describing what they saw.

00:28:06.478 –> 00:28:11.238
And most importantly, just recognizing the fact that, yes, there was something,

00:28:11.498 –> 00:28:17.478
an anomaly. someone walked through the class that wasn’t participating in class.

00:28:17.718 –> 00:28:22.398
And so the goal again would be to get them situationally prepared,

00:28:22.618 –> 00:28:26.598
to be paying attention, aware of what’s going on around them,

00:28:26.718 –> 00:28:29.718
even while they’re focused at a task at hand.

00:28:29.798 –> 00:28:35.138
It’s about not being so focused that you can’t pay attention to the other things

00:28:35.138 –> 00:28:36.278
that are going on around you.

00:28:36.438 –> 00:28:40.418
And, you know, that’s a really simple piece of advice I’ll give too.

00:28:40.618 –> 00:28:44.858
You know, one of the things we can all do to immediately become more situationally

00:28:44.858 –> 00:28:48.338
aware, or at least allow ourselves to become more situationally aware,

00:28:48.478 –> 00:28:50.678
is put down the smartphones.

00:28:50.938 –> 00:28:52.778
Take your face out of your smartphones.

00:28:53.198 –> 00:28:56.898
Whether it’s you’re walking through the parking lot to get to your car at the

00:28:56.898 –> 00:29:00.258
grocery store at work, or the game downtown in the parking garage,

00:29:00.258 –> 00:29:03.418
or you’re getting ready to cross the street.

00:29:04.118 –> 00:29:07.138
And parents, this is a really good point to make to your kids.

00:29:07.298 –> 00:29:09.038
Get off that smartphone.

00:29:09.358 –> 00:29:15.618
Get off that electronic device. Get off that Game Boy or whatever the latest, hippest thing is.

00:29:15.918 –> 00:29:20.258
Stay off of that. Pay attention to what’s going around you. Stay alert.

00:29:20.498 –> 00:29:23.798
Keep your head on a swivel. Pay attention to what’s going on around you.

00:29:24.158 –> 00:29:26.618
Use your ears. Use your sight.

00:29:27.256 –> 00:29:30.356
And use even your smell, because your smell can tell you about,

00:29:30.576 –> 00:29:33.716
if nothing else, where you are in relation to other things.

00:29:34.016 –> 00:29:39.436
One of the outcomes of becoming more situationally aware is allowing yourself

00:29:39.436 –> 00:29:44.916
to be able to better avoid a bad situation or a potentially bad situation.

00:29:44.916 –> 00:29:46.216
And we’ve already talked about the

00:29:46.216 –> 00:29:52.736
fact that your primary goal in any bad situation should be getting away.

00:29:52.736 –> 00:29:56.756
Now, if you’re jammed up in a corner or you got loved ones with you,

00:29:56.796 –> 00:30:00.676
which are on the receiving end, every situation is differently.

00:30:00.956 –> 00:30:05.956
So it always, again, someone infamous that I know and have trained under always

00:30:05.956 –> 00:30:11.556
says it depends. And that’s not an answer that anyone wants to hear necessarily, but it’s very true.

00:30:11.756 –> 00:30:17.016
Every scenario is different, but your goal is ideally to get away.

00:30:17.016 –> 00:30:21.196
But, you know, you’re learning situational awareness, so you have that option

00:30:21.196 –> 00:30:25.476
for yourself. You have the option to avoid, and, you know, getting away is certainly avoiding.

00:30:25.696 –> 00:30:30.136
So, you know, when that situation occurs, when a bad situation is unfolding,

00:30:30.136 –> 00:30:33.736
or you think there could be the opportunity for a bad situation,

00:30:33.736 –> 00:30:36.196
you want to be paying attention, for example.

00:30:36.436 –> 00:30:39.736
And these are some things you’ve got to take into consideration as you develop

00:30:39.736 –> 00:30:42.576
your situational awareness. Where are the exits?

00:30:43.396 –> 00:30:47.996
And even if you know where they are, can you get to them? because they might be blocked off.

00:30:48.156 –> 00:30:52.056
Maybe there’s a big fire between you and the main exit. What are you going to

00:30:52.056 –> 00:30:55.716
do? Where’s the secondary exit? Who’s around?

00:30:56.416 –> 00:31:00.156
Who’s blocking that exit? Do you know where it is and can you get to it?

00:31:00.256 –> 00:31:01.736
Can you get your loved ones to it?

00:31:02.136 –> 00:31:04.536
Have you had any training? Have you been trained?

00:31:05.056 –> 00:31:09.096
And have you had enough training to be confident in your training that you could

00:31:09.096 –> 00:31:11.296
deal with something if you were confronted with it?

00:31:11.376 –> 00:31:14.976
Like if you can’t get away and you have no other options, someone’s threatening

00:31:14.976 –> 00:31:19.976
your significant other or your children, or you just have to go through them

00:31:19.976 –> 00:31:21.416
in order to get away safely.

00:31:21.736 –> 00:31:25.956
Have you had the training to do so? And are you confident in the training you

00:31:25.956 –> 00:31:27.256
have that you can execute?

00:31:27.516 –> 00:31:30.636
Because you’re never going to rise to the level of your training.

00:31:31.397 –> 00:31:35.197
You’re only going to rise to the level that that situation affords you to,

00:31:35.397 –> 00:31:38.037
which is significantly less than how you train.

00:31:38.237 –> 00:31:43.417
So even if you train at 100% in class, you’re never going to perform 100% in the wild.

00:31:43.897 –> 00:31:46.657
But if you’re confident in your training and you’ve trained enough,

00:31:46.857 –> 00:31:50.317
then you should be able to do what you need to get out of there and get out

00:31:50.317 –> 00:31:51.757
of there safely. And that’s key.

00:31:52.217 –> 00:31:57.057
You know, again, who are you with? Do you have a plan with those that are you

00:31:57.057 –> 00:32:02.897
with? For example, do you have a safe word that you can use that tells them what they need to know?

00:32:03.037 –> 00:32:07.557
Maybe you spot something that they don’t because they’re all together playing a game.

00:32:07.677 –> 00:32:12.677
Maybe they’re playing the memory game with the photo or whatever at the restaurant

00:32:12.677 –> 00:32:14.817
table, and you notice the guy

00:32:14.817 –> 00:32:18.117
coming through the front door that’s not good. Do you have a safe word?

00:32:18.417 –> 00:32:21.637
Do they know what to do? Do they know what to do with that safe word?

00:32:21.757 –> 00:32:25.817
Do they know the safe place to go to when you tell them something’s wrong?

00:32:25.817 –> 00:32:30.377
And then the last thing, and, you know, this has to do with the success of whether

00:32:30.377 –> 00:32:34.197
or not, you know, the increased success of whether or not you get through these

00:32:34.197 –> 00:32:38.817
situations or not, is they tell you to think through a scenario.

00:32:39.137 –> 00:32:43.017
In order to become more successful in getting out of bad situations,

00:32:43.017 –> 00:32:47.517
they tell you that you should regularly be thinking about scenarios. However crazy they are.

00:32:47.657 –> 00:32:51.337
Create things. Home invasion for yourself. You’re sitting in your dim chair

00:32:51.337 –> 00:32:55.577
watching television, a movie, and someone kicks in your front door. What do you do?

00:32:55.817 –> 00:32:59.517
And so they’ll talk, and I’ve heard it a million times, you know,

00:32:59.637 –> 00:33:02.917
talk about, think about scenarios, think about what you should do.

00:33:03.097 –> 00:33:06.637
And those that think about scenarios and what they should do and come up with

00:33:06.637 –> 00:33:12.537
plans for themselves, it is said that they tend to do better in those situations

00:33:12.537 –> 00:33:17.857
when and if they do occur because they’ve at least had some degree of planning involved.

00:33:17.857 –> 00:33:22.277
But recently in doing some fire warden training with my company,

00:33:22.277 –> 00:33:27.577
I learned some other things that you should do that kind of break down the details

00:33:27.577 –> 00:33:32.117
of what it means to think through a scenario and not only thinking through the scenario,

00:33:32.357 –> 00:33:37.097
but doing a better job of hopefully coming out the other side in a positive

00:33:37.097 –> 00:33:40.657
way, you know, surviving the situation or getting out unscathed.

00:33:40.657 –> 00:33:45.237
And there was four things we talked about in the fire warden training that I

00:33:45.237 –> 00:33:49.197
want to mention because I think they’re important and help kind of give some

00:33:49.197 –> 00:33:53.977
clarity and more details around just thinking through scenarios and what you might do.

00:33:55.649 –> 00:33:59.669
The first one is, of course, the training, how much training you have had.

00:34:00.029 –> 00:34:03.589
What have you trained in? Are you confident enough in your training?

00:34:03.709 –> 00:34:09.569
You know, has it been that you went to a one time, two hour women’s self-defense training scenario?

00:34:09.729 –> 00:34:14.509
Now you come out and you think you’re all ready to tackle the world should anything bad happen to you?

00:34:14.629 –> 00:34:19.069
Or have you been through two and three and four and five plus years of training

00:34:19.069 –> 00:34:23.009
and you’ve done techniques and things you’ve thought through scenarios?

00:34:23.009 –> 00:34:28.129
You’re, you’ve become a, you know, you’ve come, you’ve become good at situational

00:34:28.129 –> 00:34:29.709
awareness. You know what you’re going to do.

00:34:30.149 –> 00:34:34.289
So it all boils down to the training that you have. The other thing you can

00:34:34.289 –> 00:34:36.049
do is positive self-talk.

00:34:36.249 –> 00:34:39.389
So a bad situation occurs. Maybe it’s a fire in the office.

00:34:39.669 –> 00:34:43.689
Maybe it’s a bad guy coming through the front yard, front door of the restaurant.

00:34:43.869 –> 00:34:46.549
You’re, you’re, you and your family are eating in, you know,

00:34:46.749 –> 00:34:48.449
positive self-talk to yourself.

00:34:48.689 –> 00:34:50.749
You’ve thought through that scenario. This is what I’m going to do.

00:34:50.869 –> 00:34:52.849
We’re going to be fine. We’re going to get out to the parking lot,

00:34:52.969 –> 00:34:56.449
escape, call 911, whatever it is. You’re talking yourself.

00:34:56.649 –> 00:35:00.309
You’re amping yourself just like you would maybe in participating in sports.

00:35:00.649 –> 00:35:03.929
The other thing that you’re going to do, which kind of fits right along with

00:35:03.929 –> 00:35:08.369
the positive self-talk is you’re going to be thinking of a positive outcome.

00:35:08.929 –> 00:35:12.769
You’re not going to think about all the bad stuff that could go wrong,

00:35:12.769 –> 00:35:16.929
all the bad juju, all the things that could go sideways in that scenario.

00:35:17.429 –> 00:35:21.209
You’ve planned for this. You’ve thought about it. So you’re not only giving

00:35:21.209 –> 00:35:26.329
yourself positive self-talk, but you’re also thinking about a positive outcome.

00:35:26.329 –> 00:35:28.209
You’re going to make it out to the parking lot.

00:35:28.269 –> 00:35:31.629
You’re going to call 911. You’re going to be five miles down the road before

00:35:31.629 –> 00:35:35.569
the guy with the gun even figures out that you’ve left the place, whatever it is.

00:35:36.141 –> 00:35:40.641
You are going to think positively about the outcome for you and your loved ones.

00:35:40.721 –> 00:35:43.961
And that helps you have a better chance of achieving that.

00:35:44.161 –> 00:35:48.841
And the last thing that we can do, because, you know, of all the adrenaline

00:35:48.841 –> 00:35:53.881
dump and everything else is that we get stressed out, right? That’s unavoidable.

00:35:54.041 –> 00:35:57.281
So one of the things that we can do is slow down our breathing.

00:35:57.801 –> 00:36:01.461
And I’ve learned some breathing techniques over the years, and I’ll share a

00:36:01.461 –> 00:36:05.741
couple of those with you, is one is referenced as combat breathing.

00:36:06.141 –> 00:36:10.201
And that’s basically where you breathe in for four seconds.

00:36:10.241 –> 00:36:14.361
And I’m not going to do it now, but you breathe, take a breath in for four seconds.

00:36:14.521 –> 00:36:17.161
You hold that breath for four seconds.

00:36:17.441 –> 00:36:22.921
You let it out for four seconds, and then you hold that out breath for four

00:36:22.921 –> 00:36:25.401
seconds. And so it’s 16 total.

00:36:25.821 –> 00:36:30.821
Breathe in for four seconds, hold it for four seconds, breathe out for four

00:36:30.821 –> 00:36:36.361
seconds, and hold that out without taking any air in for four seconds before you breathe in again.

00:36:36.541 –> 00:36:42.661
And if you do that repetitively, you’ll see that that has a calming effect on you.

00:36:43.261 –> 00:36:46.901
The other thing that they teach you, even in one of the things I learned in

00:36:46.901 –> 00:36:52.841
scuba diving, is that when you breathe, breathe out for longer than you breathe in.

00:36:53.021 –> 00:36:56.121
So let’s say you’re conscientious about your breathing.

00:36:56.641 –> 00:36:59.781
Let’s say you take a breath in for three seconds.

00:37:00.041 –> 00:37:05.141
And again, This is kind of in the context of diving, but the idea is to calm

00:37:05.141 –> 00:37:08.361
yourself and to relax and kind of do away with some of that stress.

00:37:08.521 –> 00:37:12.341
So let’s say you take a breath in for three to four seconds.

00:37:12.521 –> 00:37:17.101
You want to try to let that breath out for six to eight. So try to double the

00:37:17.101 –> 00:37:19.801
time that you let the breath out that you took it in.

00:37:20.241 –> 00:37:25.481
And what that’s doing, again, is actively helping you slow down your breathing.

00:37:25.481 –> 00:37:30.021
The other thing that it allows you to do is focus on your breathing so you’re

00:37:30.021 –> 00:37:35.181
not so worried about everything, all the bad stuff that might be going around about you.

00:37:35.301 –> 00:37:39.801
But the key to the important part of slowing down your breathing is you hopefully

00:37:39.801 –> 00:37:44.381
are able to de-stress a little bit, and that’s going to help you think more

00:37:44.381 –> 00:37:47.561
clearly about how to deal with the situation that you’re in.

00:37:47.681 –> 00:37:50.241
So a combination of those four things.

00:37:51.356 –> 00:37:56.276
Positive self-talk, the positive visualization that I’m going to see my way

00:37:56.276 –> 00:38:00.576
through this, the training that you’ve received, and the slow breathing,

00:38:00.756 –> 00:38:04.496
those combinations are going to help you deal with the overall stress that you’re

00:38:04.496 –> 00:38:08.396
likely going to find yourself in should something bad happen.

00:38:08.796 –> 00:38:12.776
And so I want to give you that nugget that, again, I had always heard,

00:38:12.876 –> 00:38:16.836
you know, be thinking about through scenarios and what you would do and getting

00:38:16.836 –> 00:38:20.676
through the other side, but I hadn’t heard it broken down into those four aspects.

00:38:20.676 –> 00:38:23.896
And I wanted to share that with you because I think that’s important too.

00:38:24.936 –> 00:38:30.196
Situational awareness typically is in context of when you’re out and about, right?

00:38:30.356 –> 00:38:34.836
But I argue that situational awareness happens at the home, starts at the home.

00:38:35.076 –> 00:38:40.156
And when you’re at home, that’s the one place that you should be able to relax

00:38:40.156 –> 00:38:41.876
and not have to worry about a whole

00:38:41.876 –> 00:38:46.216
lot of stuff and be thinking about the potential for bad guys coming in.

00:38:46.296 –> 00:38:50.536
But the reality of it is, you know, you need to be thinking about that even

00:38:50.536 –> 00:38:54.056
when you’re at home and you need to be playing through this, these scenarios,

00:38:54.276 –> 00:38:56.936
like we just talked about, even when we’re home, you know, you’re sitting in

00:38:56.936 –> 00:38:59.996
your chair watching television, maybe you’re by yourself, maybe with your,

00:39:00.156 –> 00:39:04.076
with the fam and someone throws a brick through the back window.

00:39:04.256 –> 00:39:06.596
What are you going to do? How are you going to get through that?

00:39:06.716 –> 00:39:08.036
How are you going to respond to that?

00:39:08.516 –> 00:39:14.916
And so while you should be able to be relaxed at home and, and you will be most of the time, right?

00:39:15.016 –> 00:39:19.096
There are situations where you do want to have a heightened sense of alert.

00:39:19.276 –> 00:39:24.956
For example, you’re in your front yard or in your driveway or in your garage with the door up.

00:39:25.709 –> 00:39:29.529
And maybe you’re mowing your grass, and so you have a tendency not to pay attention

00:39:29.529 –> 00:39:33.729
to who might be pulling up down the street or into your driveway at that moment in time.

00:39:33.729 –> 00:39:37.869
But you should be aware enough to be knowing if someone’s walking up behind

00:39:37.869 –> 00:39:41.849
you in your front yard while you’re pushing your lawnmower or riding your lawnmower

00:39:41.849 –> 00:39:46.889
where you can’t hear so well or you’re not paying attention normally to what’s going on behind you.

00:39:47.029 –> 00:39:51.369
You totally should if you’re out and exposed like that outside your home.

00:39:51.369 –> 00:39:55.229
And let’s say you’re, you know, a scenario that I think through quite a bit

00:39:55.229 –> 00:39:59.209
actually is I’m under the hood of my car in my garage with the garage door up

00:39:59.209 –> 00:40:02.509
because it gets hot as all get out in there, right? Especially in the summer.

00:40:02.649 –> 00:40:05.369
So I got my garage door up. I’m changing the oil.

00:40:05.529 –> 00:40:09.829
I’m either under the hood or I’m actually worst case scenario under the car

00:40:09.829 –> 00:40:13.049
pulling the drain plug out, draining the oil, whatever it is.

00:40:13.309 –> 00:40:17.489
I know very few people do that anymore, but I still take care of my cars that way.

00:40:17.509 –> 00:40:22.709
So I am under my hood. Or let’s say I got the shop vac, not to promote anybody,

00:40:22.809 –> 00:40:26.069
but I’ve got the shop vac and I’m vacuuming out the inside of my car.

00:40:26.249 –> 00:40:30.969
Well, as anybody knows, even a normal vacuum, much less a shop vac or any of

00:40:30.969 –> 00:40:33.129
those big industrial vacuums are very loud.

00:40:33.329 –> 00:40:37.689
You’re kneeled over, vacuum out the front floorboard of your car with your garage

00:40:37.689 –> 00:40:40.329
door open and someone comes up behind you.

00:40:40.749 –> 00:40:44.129
Well, what do you do? You didn’t hear them. You couldn’t see them unless you

00:40:44.129 –> 00:40:46.489
happen to catch their reflection in something or shadow.

00:40:46.669 –> 00:40:49.329
How are you going to respond to that? Is it a neighbor?

00:40:49.689 –> 00:40:54.169
Is it the mailman? Is it the FedEx guy? Or is it somebody trying to case the

00:40:54.169 –> 00:40:55.369
joint that you don’t know and

00:40:55.369 –> 00:40:59.109
he’s got you some pitch about a magazine or newspaper he’s trying to sell?

00:40:59.389 –> 00:41:05.169
All of these things matter. And so, again, for me, situational awareness and

00:41:05.169 –> 00:41:08.569
some of those avoidance techniques start at the home.

00:41:08.589 –> 00:41:11.749
And that’s an important note for you to remember as well.

00:41:12.529 –> 00:41:17.609
Sometimes it’s not brought up in the context of avoidance, but for the sake

00:41:17.609 –> 00:41:21.709
of this podcast, and honestly, I think it is a form of avoidance,

00:41:21.969 –> 00:41:28.549
is one of the things they tell us in the self-defense world is that bad guys

00:41:28.549 –> 00:41:29.929
don’t like hard targets.

00:41:30.189 –> 00:41:35.409
Bad guys look for unsuspecting, easy prey and victims, and there’s key things

00:41:35.409 –> 00:41:41.009
they look for to differentiate between a potential victim and someone they don’t want to mess with.

00:41:41.009 –> 00:41:44.369
And a lot of the times it all boils

00:41:44.369 –> 00:41:47.309
down to how you carry yourself and and this

00:41:47.309 –> 00:41:51.089
is especially important for women or anyone that isn’t

00:41:51.089 –> 00:41:53.949
typically paying attention or it doesn’t have

00:41:53.949 –> 00:41:59.709
a lot of self-esteem or is buried in their smartphone whatever it is so what

00:41:59.709 –> 00:42:06.249
does it mean to walk with confidence it’s so you know in my mind i think of

00:42:06.249 –> 00:42:11.769
a few things so first of all walking with confidence exudes confidence.

00:42:12.209 –> 00:42:17.349
Bad guys seem to have a tendency not to mess with folks that exude confidence

00:42:17.349 –> 00:42:18.669
or look like they’re more confident.

00:42:19.149 –> 00:42:22.869
Part of that is looking like you’re paying attention and being alert.

00:42:23.149 –> 00:42:28.189
So what does that look like? Well, it means keeping your head up, looking around.

00:42:28.189 –> 00:42:31.629
You don’t have to be bouncing around, looking over your shoulder all the time

00:42:31.629 –> 00:42:35.649
because you don’t want to come off like you’re jittery and you’re a bad guy

00:42:35.649 –> 00:42:38.029
looking for witnesses or a way out,

00:42:38.169 –> 00:42:42.109
but what you do want to do is make it a point to be cognizant of what’s going

00:42:42.109 –> 00:42:45.189
around you 360 degrees and you want to look.

00:42:45.775 –> 00:42:49.375
You want to walk with your head up. That means you got to put away the smartphone

00:42:49.375 –> 00:42:54.915
and get off the games and the social media and the text messaging that all of us like to do these days.

00:42:55.195 –> 00:42:59.835
You got to walk with your head up. It means you got to be looking around, including behind you.

00:43:00.235 –> 00:43:04.815
And that means that you’re walking upright with your shoulders back to kind

00:43:04.815 –> 00:43:07.155
of help with that look of confidence.

00:43:07.155 –> 00:43:12.135
You don’t want to walk, you know, with your head down and your head and your

00:43:12.135 –> 00:43:13.895
shoulders rolled forward because

00:43:13.895 –> 00:43:18.575
that makes you look mousy and potentially weaker than someone else.

00:43:18.735 –> 00:43:21.655
So you want to walk with your heads up. You want to be looking around.

00:43:21.815 –> 00:43:23.155
You want to stay off the phone.

00:43:23.395 –> 00:43:26.575
You want to have your, if you’re walking across the parking lot of your car,

00:43:26.655 –> 00:43:29.515
for example, you want to have your keys in your hands so you’re ready to go.

00:43:29.895 –> 00:43:34.935
You look like that anybody were to spot you or see them, that you would appear

00:43:34.935 –> 00:43:39.235
to them as though you have noticed them, maybe even before they noticed you,

00:43:39.395 –> 00:43:44.095
which is always good, all about being confident in how you present yourself.

00:43:44.395 –> 00:43:50.195
And that goes a long way towards preventing any issues occurring.

00:43:50.455 –> 00:43:54.935
Hence, it is why I say it’s part of the whole avoidance piece of this.

00:43:55.075 –> 00:43:58.315
In talking about avoidance further, you know,

00:43:58.555 –> 00:44:02.235
some of this to me seems secondary and common sense,

00:44:02.355 –> 00:44:05.415
but I know a lot of people don’t think this way because a lot of people don’t

00:44:05.415 –> 00:44:09.435
worry about the things that happen such a small percentage of time that it’s

00:44:09.435 –> 00:44:14.235
not really an issue or they’ve got the attitude of, hey, I live out in the boonies.

00:44:14.355 –> 00:44:18.115
I moved out there intentionally, so I’d be safer or worse yet,

00:44:18.115 –> 00:44:22.975
I think is a horrible attitude. But there’s a lot of people today that say.

00:44:23.315 –> 00:44:26.575
Oh, it’s never going to happen to me, right? That’s true about a lot of things.

00:44:26.675 –> 00:44:31.335
But the reality of it is, the good news is, is that bad things seldom happen

00:44:31.335 –> 00:44:33.315
regardless of what the media portrays.

00:44:33.315 –> 00:44:39.735
But the key is, and the important piece is that we’re prepared because bad things

00:44:39.735 –> 00:44:43.255
can and do happen. I mean, we have insurance for a reason.

00:44:43.435 –> 00:44:48.895
We have fire extinguishers for a reason. Our children are forced to do tornado

00:44:48.895 –> 00:44:51.655
drills in school. At least I assume that’s still a thing.

00:44:51.735 –> 00:44:56.855
I mean, I know I did coming up. whatever it is, you know, you wouldn’t jump

00:44:56.855 –> 00:44:59.495
out of an airplane without a parachute.

00:44:59.695 –> 00:45:03.775
I heard that analogy recently. A guy said, you know, if, if you had a choice

00:45:03.775 –> 00:45:08.735
and you were on a plane and the plane start suddenly was starting to go down.

00:45:09.375 –> 00:45:12.835
Wouldn’t you rather have a parachute than not in that scenario?

00:45:13.135 –> 00:45:16.215
And that was in the context of whether or not you carried a gun.

00:45:16.215 –> 00:45:21.095
But I think it’s, I think it’s a good analogy to carry over because we do all

00:45:21.095 –> 00:45:27.815
these other things in preparation for a small percentage of things that can occur in our lives.

00:45:27.995 –> 00:45:32.415
Why not be a little bit more active about our own self-defense and personal

00:45:32.415 –> 00:45:34.095
safety and personal preparedness?

00:45:34.515 –> 00:45:39.675
So in talking about avoiding, we’ve talked about situational awareness earlier.

00:45:40.176 –> 00:45:45.596
To talk about avoiding some things, you know, some key examples of voiding means

00:45:45.596 –> 00:45:52.296
not going to bad parts of town or into, let’s say, bad vacation countries.

00:45:52.316 –> 00:45:56.456
Like, you know, my buddy and I, I was just talking about this with someone the other day.

00:45:56.596 –> 00:46:00.996
My buddy and I, just in the last several years, had planned a trip to Cairo

00:46:00.996 –> 00:46:03.296
to see the pyramids and the Sphinx and all that.

00:46:03.456 –> 00:46:07.756
Well, things went south in Cairo, and we immediately canceled.

00:46:07.756 –> 00:46:10.616
Fortunately we hadn’t done a lot with it yet but we

00:46:10.616 –> 00:46:13.736
immediately canceled any idea of going to Cairo

00:46:13.736 –> 00:46:16.756
because we knew it probably wasn’t safe the same

00:46:16.756 –> 00:46:22.436
for potentially Mexico now with all the cartel activity that you know may or

00:46:22.436 –> 00:46:27.956
may not be be talked about through the mainstream media there’s just some places

00:46:27.956 –> 00:46:33.616
that you don’t want to go so whether that’s locally in a microcosm of you know

00:46:33.616 –> 00:46:35.856
bad part of town, run down part of town.

00:46:36.016 –> 00:46:40.356
We all have those, right? Wherever you live, you got the good side and the bad side of town, right?

00:46:40.436 –> 00:46:43.056
And you know, you don’t want to go into the bad side of town unless you got

00:46:43.056 –> 00:46:46.536
to get through there to get somewhere you need to be going.

00:46:46.736 –> 00:46:49.636
And even then you want to only do it during the day.

00:46:49.836 –> 00:46:53.016
And ideally you want to go around that part of town, right?

00:46:53.116 –> 00:46:57.496
So there’s just some places you don’t go or you don’t go into part of town that

00:46:57.496 –> 00:47:01.436
are known, parts of town that are known for the criminal elements, right?

00:47:01.856 –> 00:47:05.436
Along with that, kind of going back to the dark alley scenario, right?

00:47:05.956 –> 00:47:10.556
Even if it’s a shortcut to where your car happens to be parked out of the concert,

00:47:10.736 –> 00:47:14.136
after the concert you get out of, you know, after dark, you probably don’t want

00:47:14.136 –> 00:47:17.436
to go down a dark alley, especially if you’re by yourself.

00:47:17.556 –> 00:47:22.476
Or if you decide to turn down that dark alley and you see some individuals and

00:47:22.476 –> 00:47:25.696
you can’t make out who they are or what they’re doing and they’re hanging out,

00:47:25.936 –> 00:47:28.536
who cares? Turn around, go the long way.

00:47:28.836 –> 00:47:33.356
What’s it take? A few extra minutes to get to your car, you know,

00:47:33.496 –> 00:47:37.676
and, and so that dark alleyway is an example of a transitional space.

00:47:37.676 –> 00:47:41.756
So spaces in between where you are and where you ultimately want to go to.

00:47:41.976 –> 00:47:46.536
So another one’s like a parking deck after a baseball game, after a sporting event, right?

00:47:46.656 –> 00:47:51.096
You want to be extra cautious getting back into and through that garage because

00:47:51.096 –> 00:47:54.316
they’re, they tend not to be well lit in all scenarios.

00:47:55.116 –> 00:47:59.136
Sometimes the, just for the sake of this conversation, the street people can

00:47:59.136 –> 00:48:06.936
be hanging out in the stairwells or bumming from change right there on the sidewalk outside the garage or.

00:48:07.723 –> 00:48:12.723
Parking, you want to be just extra careful of those spaces and avoid them if you can.

00:48:12.883 –> 00:48:17.703
And look, if you’re alone and, you know, especially if you’re a woman alone

00:48:17.703 –> 00:48:23.363
and or alone at night, woman or not, you want to be extra careful of these places.

00:48:23.363 –> 00:48:26.243
And ideally, you want to avoid them altogether.

00:48:26.263 –> 00:48:30.603
It’s like getting gas at the gas station after dark.

00:48:30.603 –> 00:48:35.363
You want to avoid that if at all possible. One of the things I meant to mention

00:48:35.363 –> 00:48:43.943
about home and situational awareness starting at the home is we did a podcast back, podcast six,

00:48:44.223 –> 00:48:46.383
was how to make your home more secure.

00:48:46.383 –> 00:48:50.643
And we covered everything or a lot of the things,

00:48:50.803 –> 00:48:56.443
I hope most of the things that one can do outside and inside their home to be

00:48:56.443 –> 00:49:00.763
more secure, all the way from getting in your mail and picking up the newspaper out of your,

00:49:00.863 –> 00:49:04.683
into your driveway to make it look like someone’s at home and keeping up the

00:49:04.683 –> 00:49:08.923
place all the way to installing the security system in your house and keeping

00:49:08.923 –> 00:49:11.203
your doors and windows locked, just the basics.

00:49:11.203 –> 00:49:14.423
So if you haven’t listened to that podcast, that’s podcast six.

00:49:15.003 –> 00:49:16.843
How to make your home more secure.

00:49:17.243 –> 00:49:22.343
Situational awareness and avoidance comes into play in many different scenarios.

00:49:22.863 –> 00:49:29.803
It has impact all the way from crossing the street to deciding whether you go down,

00:49:29.923 –> 00:49:37.783
go down a dark alleyway or deciding if you want to go alone over to a new guy’s

00:49:37.783 –> 00:49:40.823
or an ex boyfriend’s place by yourself.

00:49:41.203 –> 00:49:45.403
So situational awareness and knowing what things to look out for and what things

00:49:45.403 –> 00:49:52.283
to avoid is what we’re talking about here, and it applies across many different scenarios for us.

00:49:53.040 –> 00:49:56.940
And so, you know, I just want to say this for people that would immediately

00:49:56.940 –> 00:49:59.780
pipe up and say, you know, I shouldn’t have to live like this.

00:49:59.920 –> 00:50:03.840
This is the criminal’s fault. We need to work on teaching people how to be better

00:50:03.840 –> 00:50:06.340
people so that we don’t have to live like this.

00:50:06.460 –> 00:50:11.280
Well, I would agree with that, but this comes down to, as so many things do,

00:50:11.600 –> 00:50:14.620
especially in today’s society, this comes down, in my opinion,

00:50:14.820 –> 00:50:18.640
to that argument of ideology versus reality.

00:50:18.640 –> 00:50:23.200
And unfortunately, when it comes to being responsible for our personal safety

00:50:23.200 –> 00:50:25.040
and our self-defense and preparedness,

00:50:25.440 –> 00:50:33.800
we have to address reality versus the way things we wish they were or that we

00:50:33.800 –> 00:50:34.960
would hope that they were.

00:50:35.180 –> 00:50:41.200
So it’s not about behaving as we would want to or should have to,

00:50:41.400 –> 00:50:46.220
but it’s really having to deal with the realities that we live in today.

00:50:46.220 –> 00:50:49.620
So I just wanted to mention that, too, because I know that’s a big thing.

00:50:49.760 –> 00:50:52.900
Like, we shouldn’t have to do all this stuff. We shouldn’t have to think these

00:50:52.900 –> 00:50:58.740
ways. And that’s a true statement, but that’s definitely more ideological.

00:50:59.200 –> 00:51:03.280
The reality of it is, is that we do. And it’s incumbent upon us,

00:51:03.360 –> 00:51:07.260
and it’s our responsibility, not just for ourselves, but for our friends and

00:51:07.260 –> 00:51:12.380
our loved ones, that we take the responsibility to learn and do these things for ourselves.

00:51:12.380 –> 00:51:16.540
I think this is a really good place to conclude this podcast.

00:51:16.560 –> 00:51:18.880
We’ve talked about a lot of things.

00:51:19.000 –> 00:51:22.680
I’m sure there’s more things that we could discuss and more examples of how

00:51:22.680 –> 00:51:23.940
to go about doing things.

00:51:23.940 –> 00:51:27.940
But, you know, I just want to end on the fact that the self-initiative project

00:51:27.940 –> 00:51:32.540
was founded on the premise that we’re all responsible for our personal safety

00:51:32.540 –> 00:51:40.780
and preparedness and being situationally aware and making the good sense decision to avoid things,

00:51:40.820 –> 00:51:44.080
even when they may turn out not to be anything bad,

00:51:44.260 –> 00:51:46.180
is on us.

00:51:46.180 –> 00:51:51.480
And so hopefully this podcast is giving you some tips and some information to think about.

00:51:51.760 –> 00:51:57.680
Again, if nothing else, I can’t teach you anything, but hopefully I can make

00:51:57.680 –> 00:52:01.320
you think a little bit about things, maybe some stuff you haven’t before,

00:52:01.480 –> 00:52:05.100
and all in the spirit of making you and your loved ones safe.

00:52:05.240 –> 00:52:09.560
So with that, we’re going to call this a wrap.

00:52:09.780 –> 00:52:11.840
And again, we want to thank you for listening.

00:52:12.120 –> 00:52:16.480
And please stay frosty out there. Yeah!

00:52:16.560 –> 00:52:34.680
Music.