Staying Vigilant Without Making Your Family Anxious featuring Sam Rosenberg

0:02 Welcome to the Dad Edge podcast. The Dad Edge movement creates leaders of men. Leaders of families and leaders of communities. We will not only impact this generation of fathers, but the next generation as well. The kids we are raising will have better chances and odds stacked in their favor because of the amazing example that their fathers emulated for them.

0:24 We are here to change the world. We are here to change relationships. We are here to positively disrupt this generation of fathers. So no man goes to their grave with regret. We disrupt the drift of busyness and replace it with razor focused intention, passion, purpose and direction. We are the dad edge and we're here to change the game.

1:01 Study done by John Gottman, who is the pioneer of marriage. Over four decades of studying married couples really understood what couples did to make themselves successful. Only 12% of people that walk down the aisle and say I do can actually identify their relationship as working. Two thirds of couples that stay together, and this is not inclusive of the 50% that get divorced.

1:24 But two thirds of the couples that stay together are either in roommate syndrome or completely and totally disconnected, where everything feels like managerial. We are running family, LLC. We're co-parenting. Maybe we're friends, but intimacy attraction polarity has just been killed in the month of November. Gents, I am giving away a book that I am not giving out to the public and it's called The Marriage Drift.

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2:12 This book, The Marriage Drift, is based on the cohort that I've been leading for the past year, and it's an eight week cohort called Roommates to Soulmates. And it's been wildly successful, and we've had anywhere from 20 to 30 men in each cohort. And almost every single guy has seen success being in that cohort. So I started asking myself, how can I create a book that's a short read?

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2:51 I always subscribe to Happy Wife, Happy Life and it did not work out for me whatsoever. I couldn't understand it for the life of me. It wasn't until ten years ago I almost lost my marriage, and then I dove into the deep end of the pool on what this whole thing looks like as far as how to rebuild the marriage, how to rebuild the intimacy, how to actually get my best friend and my girlfriend and my lover back.

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4:12 I know you will enjoy especially the marriage drift. Stop chasing and start leading again. Go to the data edge.com/join. You will not be sorry. What's going on gentlemen? Welcome to the Dad Edge podcast. We're in for a treat today. This is Wednesday, and it's actually the first Wednesday of November. So just in time for the holidays. And the holidays can be a really stressful time.

4:36 And one of the things that can stress us out even more is are we equipped and ready to be protectors of ourselves and the people that we love? You guys heard on the podcast. A couple months back, I had Sam Rosenberg on from Live Ready, and this man is absolutely unbelievable. I actually I never listened to my own shows.

5:00 But I went back and I listened to Sam's because there was a lot of, a lot of preconceived notions that I thought I was being vigilant. And Sam actually taught me a ton being on the podcast. So what I did was today is what you guys are hearing today is we've got some guys on the alliance here today on this Q and A, I know you guys are usually used to me and Uncle Joe doing our Q and A, but today we have a really special guest.

5:24 And I'm going to introduce him. So Sam welcome here. Welcome back man I'm going to give you a formal introduction here in a moment. But how are you doing, man? It's good to see you again. Likewise, Larry. I'm doing great pleasure to be here. It's an honor. Thank you. You bet. Man. So this is this is going to go out as a podcast, and it's also going to be, put in our library in the Alliance for the guys who aren't able to make it today, I actually have four questions from guys who were really bummed that they couldn't make it today.

5:50 But I know we're all going to have some live questions on this on this show. So, awesome. How's the book been doing? Just out of curiosity? Oh, the book's doing great. You know, it's it's always there, man. It's ever present. Yeah. I noticed a lot of people put their books into categories that are, like, really obscure so they can hit that sort of bestseller mark.

6:09 But, we put our smack dab in the middle of that self-help, you know, category. So, you know, we're holding our own and we're doing really well again, some pretty big, you know, heavy hidden books. So I'm pleased. I'm so happy to hear that, man. I'm not surprised. Not surprised. And I got your book in the mail, which, by the way, that even the box, it came in, like the branded box, like, that was awesome.

6:33 What? What a really cool touch. Thank you for doing that. Thank you. It. Batman. So let's talk about who Sam is and what this is all about. I'm really excited to introduce Sam to you guys exclusively here in the Alliance. When most people think about personal protection, they think about self-defense. We think about firearms learning how to fight.

6:52 But after hearing Sam's story on the podcast, you realize those things are only a small part of what it means to protect the people that we love. Sam is one of the world's leading experts and personal security and executive protection. And after serving as an officer in the United States Marine Corps, he spent years protecting some of the most recognizable people on the planet, including heads of state, fortune 500 CEOs and celebrities like Tom Cruise and Warren Buffett.

7:17 Today, Sam is the founder of Live Ready, where he has trained tens of thousands of people and hundreds of organizations to recognize threats before they actually become emergencies. Develop a lead situational awareness, which I think we'll get into today. Most importantly, cultivate a mindset needed to protect the people who matter to us most. He is the best selling author of Live Ready, which is what we were talking about, a book that challenges us to rethink what it actually means to be prepared in today's world.

7:48 The reason I'm bringing Sam to our community today is really, really simple. As husbands and fathers, we are called to be protectors. But protection isn't just about physical strength, it's about awareness. It's about being prepared. It's about making good decisions before situations become dangerous. And it's all about leading our families with confidence instead of fear. I think every single one of us today will walk away from this conversation, looking at our role as husbands, fathers and leaders a little differently.

8:17 So Sam, welcome back, man. So great to have you. Thanks, Larry. Yeah, let's do it. So ship, you got the first question. Let's go. Hey, Sam, I appreciate you so much. Living in a world that we are in. My father in law, my late father in law, was a big proponent of the movie taken, and he was always sharing with my wife and I of how we need to be aware in the world around us.

8:45 I have four kids under the age of 13. What are some things that you would work on with your children to help them be more aware? Yeah. Great question. I love this question because I've got two kids. There are teenagers now. But, you know, as a dad, I mean, you know, it's really about how do we empower those around us and with this knowledge.

9:07 The number one thing when you're talking about kids, Shep, tell me how old your kids are again. Certainly. I have a 13 year old, 12 year old, a ten year old and a seven year old. Boy girl boy girl. Okay, cool. So I think the most important thing is there's a couple factors, but the most important thing is teaching them how to embody situational awareness, how to be aware.

9:33 And one of the reasons why I think this is so valuable for young kids, and that parents have an opportunity to really get in on this early, is because, you know, our world right now is one of total distraction. You know, we are all in our phones, and there's just so much distraction in so many ways that to counter, man, that we have to create a degree of presence.

9:57 Right. So here's a couple of quick tricks that I use that I teach people to do that I did with my kids was anytime we would go into a restaurant, for example, I would always tell my kids, I mean, they knew I was going to ask them this. After a point, it became a game. They knew. Once we sat down at our table, I was going to ask him for a secondary exit, you know, an emergency exit and where the kitchen was.

10:22 So as a simple question, you know why the kitchen, right? Why do you guys think the kitchen would be an easy thing to identify and an important thing to identify? What do you think? Because there's more people there. That's a good answer. But if you think about it, anywhere in the world where you go into a restaurant or a bar, typically there will be another exit through the kitchen, right? And the only reason why we don't typically think of that same as the idea of backstage, right when we're at a show or a concert.

10:56 The reason we don't think of those areas as primary exit routes, if a threat were to say, for example, come through the front door is simply because they're off limits, right? You know, these areas are where we are not supposed to go. The concept is there's always an exit through the kitchen. It's always there's always an exit backstage.

11:15 And because those are areas that are off limits, most people don't think of them as exit routes. So those are the places that I want my kids going. If a threat walks through the front door, right. Because typically people are going to have a degree of panic and concern of like, what do we do? Where do we go?

11:31 And what exacerbates that panic? Is it the only place that is in the subconscious mind as a way out of that location is the way you came in, and that is cut off, then it reinforces panic. So as a really, really easy way to build, situational awareness in a very simplistic way is every time you go into a restaurant, play that game right, and you can play it randomly and the kids will start to think ahead and go, I know dad's going to ask me this at some point.

12:01 So they start looking and scanning and then you can actually teach them some tactics. I always teach people that scanning left to right is a little bit easier, because our brains in the United States of specially are hard wired to interpret information from left to right, because we read that way. So from an early age, we start getting better comprehension that way.

12:22 So they'll get in the building and immediately scan left or right, because they know that question might be coming. Another component is, you know, when we're talking about young kids, especially like your seven year old, you know, there's there's age ranges. So when we're talking about young kids, you know, pre-teens, the danger is not so much, let's say, personal security in the way we think of it.

12:50 Okay. They're going to have typically adults with them most of the time. What they have to remember be able to understand or three critical things. The first is what do I do if I get separated from my parents or my, you know, my, you know, group or whatever it is, if they're on a school trip, what do I do if I get separated, you know, how do I manage that?

13:12 You know, and then, functionally speaking, how do I recognize danger at their level? So if we think about, you know, all of us here, I'm going to make a big assumption based on our general ages as I see them in, you know, with the, you know, our faces here. When we all grew up, we grew up with some degree of don't talk to strangers.

13:32 You guys ever heard that? You know, obviously like that's how we were taught, right. So we tend to repeat that to our kids, our young kids. And the challenge with that is they don't understand what it means, right? We don't model that. What they do is they see dad talking to strangers all the time, so they have no concept of what they're really looking at.

13:54 So what I always tell people is that this is an inverted logic, because two components to this are backwards. The first thing is the idea of talking to strangers, don't talk to strangers doesn't make sense. And in many ways, they're more likely to be victimized by someone they know who is not a stranger than than someone they don't.

14:16 Okay, the second part of this is their ability to communicate with strangers is critical in the event they get separated or lost or in trouble. So what we really need to do is to teach them, number one, not so much to be afraid of strangers, but to be able to recognize strangeness. Right? You know what is danger? What equates to danger at a seven or 8 or 9 year old mind?

14:42 Right when the right in that threshold where maybe the parents are not hovering over them all the time and they're going to have a little more freedom and want a little more freedom, then maybe playing out in the cul de sac with their friends. They need to know what is danger equal to them. Okay, the second part of that is in the event you need to ask a stranger for help, how do you identify a safe stranger?

15:03 So in terms of recognizing danger, what it really comes down to at their level is to understand their gut. Right? Intuition. We all have it. They have it. We have to reinforce that that is acceptable to trust. So one of the ways you can teach this with young kids is when you're out, give them opportunities to engage with people.

15:23 So when you're ordering it Starbucks, let them make their own order. Right. And of course, they're not going to want to. I mean, my kids were like, you know, you do it, dad. You know what I mean? Like, they get they clam up. It's like a public speaking fear. But the idea here is give them encouragements to do that.

15:40 It builds confidence and communication skills. But on top of that, you can then debrief free quickly. What do you think of that person? You know? How did that person make you feel? Or if you're out with them and you see strange behavior pointed out and say, what do you see there? Right. And just engage in the dialog? I don't think that person, that person doesn't make me feel comfortable.

16:00 I feel that if that person seems really weird to me, you know, and you can kind of get into that to the point of reinforcing that it's they have the quote unquote agency to feel if they feel fear or uncomfortableness around someone, they don't have to engage with that person. And then this is something they can tune into right now.

16:22 There's other things that we can get into in terms of how far away is from stay to people. You know, how far away to stay from people, things like that. But in terms of the bigger, more important things, tuning into their intuition to be able to recognize strangeness is first. Right. Another component to that we can get into is that it is unusual for adults, you know, genuinely to talk to kids, right?

16:45 Adults shouldn't be engaging with their kid, with your kid or anyone else's kid, frankly. And if you're standing right there and they're having a conversation with you and they say, oh, yeah, I really like your shoes or whatever, that's fine to a degree. But the idea is that no adult should ever approach sort of a child who is protected at that moment.

17:04 Right? You know, we all know that. Strange. So just teaching your kids things like this that this shouldn't happen, right? And if it does, keep your distance and this is what distance means, it's from the distance from the car door, past the sidewalk to the grass. Right. And keep it really simple, you know, kind of like visual things they can understand, the component of, you know, being able to approach a stranger is the other flip side.

17:33 And I'm going to give you guys a really valuable, simple tool, okay? It comes down to one and only one critical thing. The kid has to remember find a mother. Right. So if you're separated from your group, if you're separated from your family, you know, if you can't stand your ground and wait, which is one thing that's kind of a first step that let them come find you.

17:57 If you have to go and ask a stranger for help, being able to do so is one of the most valuable things. Skill sets that they can have, instead of just losing their minds, is they have a plan now, and the plan is find a woman, or particularly a mother. Don't go approaching random guys. Don't try and find a police officer or whatever.

18:19 Kids can't tell the difference between a janitor's uniform and a law enforcement officers uniform. You know, half the time and from their vantage point, looking up, it's all very confusing. So the principle of finding a woman and a mother is a very simple rule that you can teach. Okay. The last component to that, and we're talking really simple high points that you can work on with your kids.

18:44 This is a great one. Right. And I'm going to I'm going to explain the drill. You guys can have fun with this with your kids if you have young kids or nieces, nephews, whatever. When I teach young kids about the potential for someone trying to take them, right. Most of the time it's allure, right? And kids are hungry for understanding the lures.

19:07 Meaning if you can rehearse, if someone walks up with a dog and says fluffy is lost, you know, can you help me find fluffy? One of the reasons why that works so well on young kids is because it plays instantly to their sense of empathy, right? So if you think about the most vile, most despicable thing imaginable is actually preying on the one thing that is the innocence of that child, right?

19:35 You know, their desire to help find this lost dog. Right? And I've seen videos of this where they've done experiments, the the dad sitting there or the mom sitting there and says, do you think your kid would go with me if I tried to lure them? And they go 100% of the time? And I saw one video that was very powerful where they did it.

19:53 They lured the kid away, and then they were breaking it down with the mom, and they explained to the kid what happened and why not to go. And the little kid who was like a 6 or 7 year old girl goes, but what about fluffy? She's still out there, you know? I mean, this is how powerful that is. So the idea here is that you can work through some of those common laws, and if you just Google it, you'll find a bunch that you can play with in terms of what are the common lures. But if someone physically tries to grab your kid in that, say, 1112 year old age group, 9 to 12, I would say, I teach them what I call sticky octopus.

20:30 Okay, have them drop to the ground, grab onto something a, you know, a light, pull a bike, another person, you know, I mean, their sibling, whatever it is. And just grab on and hold on. And as you try to pull them away, it becomes extremely difficult. But now they have an immediate action plan. Instead of someone grabbing their risk, the kid goes into paralysis, shock and just follows.

20:57 And then the the component that's a lot of fun for the kids is they have to scream and use their voice, but they're going to say something very specific that you're going to teach them. And what it is, is this is not my dad, okay? This is not my father. The kids screaming and hollering and someone's trying to pull them out of a Walmart.

21:18 Right? Parents who observe that think the kids just acting out, right. Then when a kid says, this is not my father, this is not my dad, whatever it is, my mom, people instantly stop what's going on in approach. So all you ever have to do is have that kid bog down an abduction attempt by two seconds. If they can bog it down by two seconds, it's abandoned.

21:42 And they they hightail it out of there. Right. So the critical moment is sticky octopus. This is not my dad. And it can become a really, really fun game to play. That's not threatening. That's not like, hey, if someone tries to grab, you can kind of do it because kids are eager to understand it. But you can do it in a way that gives them an opportunity to scream and shout and and kick at you and make, you know, have a blast doing it.

22:08 And it's, you know, great for that age group. Right. And I'd say that progresses all the way up until about teen tween years. Then they really need to focus on a little bit more of the security like persuasion, predators and stuff like that, people using charm, persuasion. And and that's where I'd say for to to for brevity, get a copy of my book and check that out because we get into the persuasion predator dynamic a lot.

22:33 Okay. Thanks, Sam I appreciate it. Yeah, that was a long answer. I'm sorry. It was. It was so. Oh, it's it was a great answer. It's exactly what I was looking for. And I know a lot of other dads would say the same thing so that. Yeah. So I try to gamify it. Right. Play the game about where your exits.

22:51 Where's the kitchen? Encourage them to communicate with strangers so they lose that fear of communication. Who's the safe stranger? It's always a woman or a woman with kids, ideally, because they'll stop everything to help that kid. And, you know, you're hedging your bets and then functionally, the sticky octopus and the, you know, kind of like, this is not my dad.

23:11 Those are like, the more nitty gritty tactics. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. That was so good, man. That's a that's a lot of meat on the bone. I appreciate that. We have another question from one of our members, and I know the premise of this question. And I got to tell you, this one's really unique, and it's really good.

23:31 So, Jim, the floor is yours, my man. Thanks. This is actually my first Q&A. So this topic was enough to bring me in. I'm passionate about this topic. You know, I very much feel that provider protector role. I've got cameras around the house. My boys are eight and nine. They understand the, you know, basic rules of gun safety.

23:57 I've got a big Belgian Malinois to protect them, and they're going to learn. I'm going to teach them all this stuff, but, I've only got them half the time. They're with their mother. The other half. I can only convey so much to them. In in a high conflict co-parenting situations. Yeah. What might you suggest for the other half of their life that they live in right now with their mother?

24:24 To make sure we've got bases covered. Well, that's a tough one, man. Because you said it's a high conflict. Co-parenting, right? And I'm no stranger to dealing with those dynamics. You know, to the even to the point of dealing with where the the co-parenting dynamic is sociopathic in nature or stalking in nature and all of that.

24:48 So I don't want to get too deep into your personal dynamic, but if you were to go to, for example, your ex and say, you know, like, does she have a security system on her house? Yep. Okay. So if you were to go to her and say, hey, I've been thinking about this, you know, I know we've had our differences, but we we both love these kids.

25:14 I still care about you as the mother to my kids. And I want you and them to be safe. How about if I pay for a security system on your place? And the only thing I ask you to do is you use it. Meaning you arm it at night. You know what I mean? Things like that. You know, you can sometimes take away the imposition of.

25:35 I don't want to do that. You know what I mean? Because of the cost or whatever, by just giving it to her. You know what I mean? That if you can get them to use it, you may give you a sense of a little more peace of mind that even though she's certainly I would say I'm just making an assumption, but she'd probably not be the protector.

25:58 You are. Okay. She doesn't think the way you do. But if you can get her to do that step, at least you know when the kids are over there. Half the time that at night they're secure. You know what I mean? Yeah. So that would be my very first thought is, how do we leverage technology in this particular way?

26:17 Because your kids are young. They, you know, your kids are in an age where they need to be protected. You know, we can teach them emergency response plans and say, if you're in school and, and a guy comes into the classroom, regardless of what your teacher says, your goal is to get out of the classroom and get out of the school and keep going.

26:37 Right. And, you know, we can sort of build that psychology of, okay, here's a simple plan to do, you know, here's another plan in the event someone something happens at the house. And here's how I can help you become more aware of trusting your gut and all these things when you're on your time. But they're still little kids.

26:55 They need to be protected so they can be kids. So I would leverage the technology as much as I can. Even to go so far as to say like, you know, again, this is all depends on the relationship and the dynamic of the relationship. You know, do you feel, well, again, you don't have to answer this, but do you feel like are the kids at risk when they're there, for example, her having a gun but not having proper security around it, you know, so unauthorized access can happen.

27:26 Is that a concern? No, no, I, her and boyfriend, kind of more potential gardeners in a war than more years in a pair. Okay. So if there's those kinds of things, then it comes down to training them and then maybe even, like, here's a gun safe or whatever, but you know what I mean. Like, you get where I'm thinking, and this is how do we take away any resistance that she may have to the suggestion and make it a really simple, positive suggestion of like, I'm happy to do this.

27:59 I would really feel better if you did this because I know you're safer too. You know. Yeah. That's how I would look at it. And, you know, unfortunately, beyond that, it's like what you can do to work with your kids to make them more student sophisticated. Because I doubt if you said I'll. I'll pay for you to go to a self-defense class, that she'll get anything out of it or engage in it.

28:20 You know, most likely her and the boyfriend or are just not wired that way. So what you're doing is hedging your bet to make sure law enforcement can protect her a little sooner or faster, and that there's some kind of infrastructure around their security. You know what I mean? So yeah. Yeah. And we can always talk more offline if you have more specific questions.

28:40 I don't want to put you on the spot of anything specific. Okay. Thank you for that question, Jim. Yeah. Jim, that that was a great question. And really unique one too. I think that that there's a lot of men in your situation that quite frankly, probably want to know that the answer to that question as well. So, thank you for that question.

29:02 Very unique. Larry, let me jump back on that one more second, if you don't mind, Jim, if there's ever the concern over the boyfriend or other people involved in that, then one of the most important things to teach your kids right now is that anybody who who asks you to keep a secret is not your friend, okay? Anybody.

29:26 And there can be no secrets between you and your kids, right? That just that hard rule to reinforce that if anybody saying, I'm going to tell you this or we're going to do something, but don't tell your dad like you have to know about it, make sense? Absolutely. That was good, man. I have a very unique question. That was a message to me in our in our membership app.

29:52 This one is really interesting. And I can, I think selfishly, can relate to this when some like, wow, like what? What have I done in this situation? And there hasn't been a whole lot because like, it's it's unique because it's like the kid isn't little. They're old enough now to be out on their own. So this one's from Chris.

30:11 My oldest son is 16 and starting to drive. He goes out with friends and he's in situations where I'm not there to protect him anymore myself. If you were teaching a teenage boy how to protect himself and the people around him, what would you want him to know before he leaves the house? The first thing that I think with teenage boys, you know, all of us here on this call, having been teenage boys at some point in our lives, I would say we have to learn.

30:40 We have to try and teach. Our kids obviously want them to make good decisions, all that kind of stuff. We got to teach them how to manage confrontations. Okay. And what I mean by that is the number one rule in any confrontation is the first person that needs to be de-escalate. Is you. Right? So, you know, you you've got to be able to teach them to keep ego in check.

31:03 Now, I don't know Chris or his son personally, but just knowing teenage boys, any situation that gets involved in, you know, I, I have to be the one to stand in there and protect others. May not be the right decision in some ways. Right? The real goal is to get out of that situation, to not put yourself in it and get out of it.

31:28 And if you're in a confrontation where you're being targeted or your friends are being targeted, the goal is no different. Get them out of there. So de-escalation of we need to keep our own ego in check and not get into the fight in the first place is critical in terms of, you know what, if they get into a physical altercation, one of the reasons why I try to tell people, you know, the goal needs to be avoidance in this regard.

31:55 And don't get me wrong, I think training is essential. I think the kids should be doing martial arts, you know, you know, competent. You know, I'm not talking about, you know, little kid stuff, ninja training. I'm talking about legitimate learning how to fight. Learning how to protect yourself is invaluable. But the idea here is I'll share a story.

32:15 Okay? This dad explained to me the situation. So this is the third party his kids are in. Laid high school, early college. I believe we're on a spring break type trip. They're at a restaurant, and they see a woman being harassed by a couple of guys. Okay. And pursued and harassed. So these boys decided we're going to be the.

32:42 We're going to intervene and stand up because this is wrong. We shouldn't see this happen. We're going to intervene. So they got up and intervened. It turns into a fight. Okay. It turned into a violent situation and nobody was critically injured. But because of the violent situation, the woman who was the target took off, you know, as as quickly as she could, leaving these boys to deal with these guys, cops or come up and they arrest everybody.

33:09 Right. And now the good guys in this situation are in trouble because the police wrote it up as mutually combative. And you lose your right to self-defense and to, you know, justification of use of force when it's considered mutually combative. And the problem is we're dealing with two bad guys who should never have been in this situation, who are looking to do harm to good guys here who are otherwise upstanding, good kids.

33:36 And they have to go through the legal dimensions of this not only criminally, you know, fighting that they what they did was appropriate and that they were okay, but also potential civil consequences in a state they don't even live. Right. So it's a mess. And the idea here is that, you know, we we may have all been in situations.

33:58 I know I've been in situations like that where I want to stand up and I have stood up for people who were being picked on, bullied, harassed. The challenge is there's going to be consequence of it gets physical. And this doesn't even, you know, broach the issue of what if those kids stood up to these two guys in Miami or wherever it was and ended up getting shot, right?

34:20 So are they ready for that level of potential violence? So the idea here is, I'm not saying teach your kids to not get involved and, you know, just walk away and leave this woman to the sharks. The idea here is to have a healthy understanding of the consequences, right? And to say, look, these are the circumstances under which you manage this, right?

34:41 Use your voice. If that doesn't work, you know what I mean. Call for help. Be the first one to make the call after the incident. You know what I mean? All that kind of stuff. It's it's a it is a minefield dealing with the legalities. So two, two very after all that short answers to this, number one, the best thing you can do for your teenage boys is invest in some capacity to learn how to actually manage violence.

35:06 Okay? Whether that's BJJ, MMA, crowd, mega something like what I teach, you know, whatever it is, right. You know, some type of legitimate personal security training programs. So they have skills because the more skills they have, not only the more capable of they of they are of managing actual violence when they cannot escape it. But ultimately the less likely they are to escalate or to be unable to check themselves or the situation and keep it managed at a certain level.

35:37 Make sense? The greater their capacity is to defuze. The second component to that training is you must invest in teaching them the legalities. So I've always said you got to understand three things what is tactically, morally and and legally appropriate in that moment. And that is such a hard thing to teach, because you can spend a lifetime trying to understand if I have to defend myself, what does this mean?

36:05 Is it use what is the use of force law? You know, is it force or is it deadly force? What level of force can I use and when and how can I get it? You know, if that in such a way where I am protected legally? Very, very complex, challenging thing and almost impossible to make those decisions in the moment.

36:23 Which falls back to the training, because you will do what you've been trained to do. So the training has to support that. Does that make sense, Larry? That makes sense. It's a complicated dynamic. I want my son. My son's 16. Big kid, you know? You know, d one potential athlete. You know all this. I need him to make good decisions, too, because he could be targeted just because he's a big boy in an athlete.

36:47 He could I could easily see him stepping into a situation because he has a very noble heart. Right? He has to be able to make good decisions. And part of that is arming him not only with the tools, but also the understanding of the consequences. Legal dynamics. Now, I love how you broke that down into three different parts.

37:06 That was very, very clear and very simple. I do want to ask a follow up question on the martial arts. So you know, the so I've done jiu jitsu, I've done krav, I've done Cookson Taekwondo. And I know, I know, not all martial arts are created equal. But you did mention Krav Maga. You also mentioned jiu jitsu. You know, my my 12 year old, all my kids have taken a little bit of jiu jitsu, a little bit of, my God, I have one son in taekwondo.

37:36 He just he's my youngest. He's just like, I just don't I don't want to be like in grappling right now. But he'll he'll do it later. Yeah. Like in in your opinion, the one I love jiu jitsu. But the only thing that concerns me about jiu jitsu is that if there's a group of people trying to attack you, jiu jitsu is more of a more of an art that it's like one on one.

37:54 Do you do you think that an art like Krav Maga is superior in like, most street settings or or what do you think is is the better martial art? The the short answer is yes. I think something that is designed around the realities of violence in the in the street real world is going to prepare someone better for those potentials.

38:18 Okay. The challenge I have with crowd is that is about as good as the instructor, right? So, you know, you get an instructor who's like a taekwondo guy, and suddenly the crow looks like taekwondo, you know what I mean? So it depends on the instructor and I, you know, like, literally the last chapter of my book is how do you pick the right training?

38:39 You know what I mean? It's my way of looking at it. But you got to vet what you're doing. Okay. The challenge with jiu jitsu is exactly what you're talking about. If there's weapons or multiple opponents, we've got problems. If you're a woman, I don't want my daughter, who's, you know, eight, almost 18, but a five foot three and 130 pounds, dripping wet, Max, rolling around the ground with someone my size.

39:04 You know, no matter what her skill set is. So the idea here is that I don't want to have a basis for defense that is competitive in nature. Cro-Magnon is not competitive in nature. It's not. Let's see who's better. And I'm going to work where you out systematically and upgrade my position until eventually a submission is available. You know, I think that the idea of jujitsu or judo or any grappling, which is really good is it gets you being comfortable, being very uncomfortable, proximity, having someone on top of you, not losing, you know, your shit during that moment.

39:40 It's one of those things where it really teaches you a lot. Having been a wrestler, judo, jiu jitsu, all that kind of stuff myself, I like that component of it. And certainly the ground fighting is is capable. The, what I like about Krav is, is dealing with, you know, edge weapons, impact weapons, multiple opponent handling, staying on your feet, getting back to your feet.

40:03 My system live ready is is closest on paper, if you will, to krav. Okay. I just happen to take a different approach towards some of these things, than their techniques, but that's just, you know, tomato, tomato, you know, but I think you need all of it. Striking is a game changer in a grappling situation. You know, you need to know how to strike.

40:28 You need how to defend against strikes. You need to know how to grapple if you end up on the ground, functionally speaking, something that can give you a quicker, broader balance for real world, I think is probably going to be the easiest thing to find would be Krav, because you're not going to find libretti in Texas or Minnesota or whatever.

40:45 Yeah, the very first I did Krav Maga for a couple of years of my oldest son, and we had to drive 45 minutes one direction and then 45 minutes to get to this school. It it was so worth it. The very first class that I went to, the instructor taught us how to fight herself out of a corner with four people on top, like four people gathered around us.

41:06 And it was like I was like, dude, this is crazy, real. And like every, every class was amazing. It was, it was it's a good art. So thanks. Thanks for putting that up. Sounds like you've got a good one there too. Worth the drive. He he was. He is awesome for sure. I, I do have a so this one another question from, from one of my members named Jason.

41:29 I thought this was a really neat question too, because I think, one of the things that we can transfer onto our, our family is our anxiety and paranoia. We don't want to do that. So his question is really unique. So, Jason, I appreciate this question. He says my wife thinks I'm a little paranoid when it comes to locking doors, checking our surroundings, or paying attention to people around us.

41:49 How do you teach a man to be vigilant and prepared without becoming anxious, or making his family feel that feel like there's danger everywhere? Great question. So here's my experience. I've taught people where I've taken for example, this happens a lot with women and I'm not saying it's not, it's exclusive to women, but it's happen a lot more with women than men.

42:11 Where I take a woman through an initial class a couple hours and she learns how bad guys think and how to manage interviews. You know that I of time she managed. She learns how to fight back using improvised weapons and stuff like that. Real simple, down dirty stuff. She's got walks out of there in a parking lot. She can use it immediately.

42:29 Right. And the feedback sometimes is like day one, you know, 24 hours later, I am. So I feel so empowered by day three. I feel like I'm looking around for danger everywhere and it's making me anxious. Okay. Once you pull the veil back, right, and you start seeing the world for what it really is, you can't go back, right?

42:52 You can't go back. So the only way out is through. You've got to invest in enough training and enough experience in this, where that anxiety turns into a degree of confidence that says, I know I can handle on certain situations, and I can handle a bad situation that comes at me. I may not be the best. I'm not a jujitsu black belt yet or whatever that they're like.

43:14 I have options and I can think and make decisions. When they get to that point, that anxiety goes away and it's confidence. Now they're walking differently and they're looking at the world realistically, and they're switched on when they need to be switched on. And they can relax when they need to be, when they can be relaxed. So some of the tricks, number one, the way out is through okay.

43:38 So if your family members are getting anxious, because you feel like your vigilance is affecting them in a way that they feel anxious, the best solution is get them confident by getting them to understand these dimensions and getting them more capable of handling this on their own. And then when they understand, I can make good decisions and I can fight back if I have to, it emerges as confidence as opposed to anxiety.

44:04 Number two, if you yourself find yourself in a heightened state of vigilance to the point where you're anxious and as a result, your anxiety is being felt by everyone around you, then one of the tricks of the trade is we talked about, I believe, on the on the podcast is have a way of understanding when you need to be switched off or switched on and when you can relax.

44:30 Right. And that that goes back to those rules, you know, know that every place has a purpose. And if you're going through an area of mandatory travel, you turn the dial up a little bit and you pay attention. And then once you're where you're going, you can relax a little. When you're at the concert and you're looking around, you're like, everywhere is a potential soft area and soft target.

44:50 Figure out your emergency exit strategy. Where's the backstage? Where are the exits? Things like that. Program it, communicate it, and then relax. Right. And trust that your intuition and your your radar will alert you when there's a problem. And now you've already got your action plan in place. So, you know, getting into a little bit more formality of how you pay attention and, and, and, and practice your situational awareness will give you a certain level of like, I can relax more and by me relaxing more, it makes my family more relaxed.

45:25 They don't feel like dad's crazy. But that being said, you know, listen, we are the sheepdogs, right? Okay. The sheep are always going. This is not being mean to our family members, but the sheep are always going to look at us and go, why is this guy always on the perimeter, peeing on rocks and looking for danger?

45:46 It's the way we're wired and that's just the way it is. Okay, I would say don't conform to, you know, like, don't be less aware because you're afraid it's going to cause other people to be uncomfortable. They have to adapt a little bit to that. But what I'm saying is if you're nervous, give yourself a little more strategy around that so that you can calm that down and trust that you've got everything in place and that will ease that sort of felt anxiety.

46:15 Does that make sense, Larry? That makes total sense. I know I can actually relate to his question. So, you know, I've, you know, I've, I've done self-defense, you know, for years. And, and I also, you know, I, I, I believe in protecting yourself. You know, I have a, I have my concealed carry, you know, and I, I think a lot of times my wife thinks like I'm absolutely paranoid and I'm like, I'd rather be in a situation where I'm prepared versus be in a situation where I'm not prepared.

46:45 Yeah. Because, you know, it's even like, I know this, you know, it sounds a little crazy to her, but it sounds normal to me because, like, especially when we're in church, like, I mean, because I know that's a huge target and she's like, nothing's going to happen in church. I was like, churches are like one of the number one places where people go crazy and things, bad things happen.

47:02 But like, I'm always like, you know, hey, we're we're going to be protected. There's the exits, you know, and but I, I notice that even if I'm relaxed and I share those things with her, she kind of looks at me like you're freaking me out. You know, even if I'm relaxed upon it sometimes. Larry, what's the old saying?

47:19 The price for peace is eternal vigilance. I've never heard that, but that's good. Yeah, there's a there's something. I'm probably getting it a little off, but it's like the price for peace is eternal vigilance. You know what I mean? Like the moment you talk yourself out of being ready is, is when things are going to go sideways. You know what I mean?

47:42 Like, you have to. It's a lifestyle. That's why we get along so well. You know what I mean? We get we are talking about the same thing. And functionally speaking, this is our lifestyle. This is the way we're wired. And we don't want our families to feel afraid. We're taking the burden on ourselves of this vigilance. But again, one of the challenges is how do you balance it?

48:04 Right. And I'm I think the way you balance it is by a empowering them. Okay. So they feel a sense of confidence around it themselves. And then be by giving yourself permission to have procedures, you know, like when we go on vacation and we're at the hotel room, we can relax, right? Because we're behind that closed door. And, you know, you kind of do those things and it's just part of who you are.

48:31 I mean, it's and yeah, my wife thinks I'm not too right. If that makes you feel any better. You know, I put a very sophisticated camera system on my house, far more sophisticated than most people would ever consider doing it. And it's one of the reasons is because of the line of work I'm in and some of the people that we end up having to come across or deal with, as you know, cases that we manage.

48:55 And the reality is, are we being targeted? No, I would not like that. But the concept is that should we ever find ourselves being targeted, I don't want to be behind the eight ball and then and then have to try and spin up all the necessary security measures in the same way, we've got a certain amount of food and water in the house.

49:17 There's ammunition, there's all of those preparedness components. I don't want to have an extended power outage, but the grid is a potential weak point. Well, I'm not going to allow it to be like, well, let's just trust that everything's going to be fine. We do what we think is necessary to make sure that those components are prepared, and then we can relax.

49:35 I love that man. I love that this is a this exceeded expectations in my in my opinion. Thank you so much for for coming on today man. And thank you for answering chef's question and and Jim and and also the guys who emailed in today. This was absolutely gold so thank you. If I know we shared this sorry.

49:58 Go ahead. Happy to do it any time man. Yeah, I appreciate this, man. Yeah. Just if the guys want to connect with you, obviously grab a copy of the book or anything else you got out there. What's the best place for them to find you? You know, same thing I mentioned on the podcast. I even updated it. Go to D&D edge. It's node V, D&D edge dot dot CEO is a special landing page I had my team put together and get a free copy of my book. Digital download. If you want a hard copy, please buy it. Give me a nice review on Amazon. It always helps. But the idea is that you get a free copy of my book and access to a very high end course that I teach called radar.

50:39 It's the online version, the. This is one of the courses that I can deliver in an online medium really well. And the radar class is all about how you recognize danger and all the five rules and how you actually go through that. I get into the persuasion predator dynamics in there. For all the dads that want to be able to teach that to their teenagers.

51:00 So it's it's available to anyone who's part of D&D edge for free. So go to that landing page book radar class. You know, we I think we end up collecting emails and stuff, but we don't pester anyone. So, you know, it's all part of that, that component. Okay, so debt edge dot liberty dot seal. I had no idea you were going to do that.

51:24 That is that is insanely kind, man. Thank you so freaking much. It's my pleasure. You know, just push it out to the alliance members. You know, let's just make sure everybody here gets that. And, you know, the advantage of that training and technique and, you know, makes them selves a little better protector. We will definitely share that link, man.

51:43 We're also going to put your social media, your website and there too. And then I'm going to share that link, obviously within the alliance. And then for anybody else who's listening you can go to the edge.com/1553. We'll have that link that, that that Sam mentioned along with your social media, if you guys want to follow you and, and many more links.

52:04 But thank you so much for coming on today, man. Yeah, yeah. Like us on if you watch YouTube videos, check out our YouTube channel. I mean, we do a lot of breakdowns and some techniques and stuff like that, and I'm still getting better at that, so be kind. You know what I mean? It's it's a it's hard. It's hard producing social media content.

52:22 You know what. You know, what's so funny is I think the more useful things are on YouTube, the, the the less it gets seen. Like, I, I see this stuff that my kids see and I was like, this is this is ridiculous. Like, I, my my ten year old tells me all the time like we, we get a ton of downloads on the podcast and we've got like a half a million followers on social media.

52:42 But our YouTube channel, I, I don't really pay attention to it. That's probably why we have like 16,000 subscribers and I'm just like, and I'll see, like the shenanigans that my kids watch. And I was like, how does this have 4 million views? But being a good father gets like, you know, a few thousand. I don't understand that, but I know the algorithm doesn't work in our favor or something.

53:01 You know, it definitely doesn't. Yeah, but thanks again for coming on. Like I said guys the dads.com/1553 for all the goodies today. And again Sam thank you for your generosity man. That's really kind of you. And very unexpected I didn't expect that. Oh it's my pleasure. Thank you guys. Thank you.