Situational awareness with retired Air Force colonel Brian Searcy

**[00:00:00]** Armando: Hello everyone and welcome to The Web Talk Show. My name is Armando Perez-Carreno and today with us is Brian Searcy. He's the founder at Paratus Group. Welcome Brian. Brian: How are you? Well, thanks for having me on. Like you said when we were getting ready to in the green room, this was short notice, but I always like it when it's short notice because usually things are more frank. I don't have time to think about things so the truth comes Armando: Out maybe. Oh yeah. Well, that's amazing. And I'm glad you said that out loud because sometimes we get guests on the show and they have PR reps and they reach out and things like that and they ask some of them if we can have sort of an intro conversation and I always say no no we do it live because I like the frankness. I like the genuine reaction to everything we learn about each other through the call on the recording and I think it makes for for a better experience. I don't know what you think. Brian: No, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I rarely have a script prepared for anything. All the videos that I do, everything we create, I fall back on, you know, how long I've been doing it and then whatever just pops into my head. Sometimes I have to do it a couple times, but I usually don't have a Armando: Script. I like that. I think it makes it for better content. Of course, it's not an excuse to always just wing it because some people do need more preparation and that might just mean you need more practice to become good at doing it sort of in an improvised way. But at the end of the day, it comes across as more natural in my opinion. And it also helps. I mean, at the end of the day, it helps our minds to stay snappy and agile if you're having to go back on your knowledge and remember the things that you do instead of following a specific set script. Brian: Well, at my age, that's kind of important. You know, one of the things that I tell my wife all the time is, not retiring, exercising all the time. **[00:02:02]** It's the trying to keep the old man out, if you will. And the other thing for me by not having a script is, you know, one of the 10 critical personal skills we have in our program is active listening. And if I had a script and I already had an idea what I wanted to say, I would try to then squeeze that in to answer the questions you're asking instead of answering the questions. So that's the other reason that that I don't often Armando: Have a script. I like that. And it's very true. Do you see it with people when when there is a script sometimes it's like they're waiting and it's like where you're having a conversation and you're just waiting to put in your part and it just makes for for for an incoherent dynamic that's one of the parties is not going to be taken advantage of. So very good. So let's give an audience the quick intro behind Paratus Group and what you do there and could you tell us also how you got to this point? Brian: Yeah, so I'm a retired Air Force colonel. I did 23 years in the Air Force. Flew AWACS and JSTARS. Then I commanded at the squadron group and the wing level. Retired in 2010. Did a number of things. Worked for a defense contractor for a while like a lot of senior guys do and gals do and did not enjoy it. So after about 18 months I left that and started doing the entrepreneur thing. Worked with a with a couple guys on a on a program that really didn't go anywhere but you know all the steps that I went through God it was God's plan just like my entire career was to give me the tools to do I think what now he has me doing. So did that for a while. Then I got involved in active shooter training and that active shooter training was for schools and churches. And predominantly it was the right of bang. What do you do if there is an active shooter? And after about a year I recognized we weren't preventing anything. We weren't preparing people to you know to how to keep an active shooting event from happening. So I developed a program that we added to our active shooter training. **[00:04:04]** We did that for a year. And then I realized about a year later that while active shooter is critical and it's terrible when it happens, it's only one of dozens of threats that we see in our communities today. You've got bullying, suicide, human trafficking, sexual assault. There's, you know, the list just goes on. And we're not doing a good job pre being prepared to prevent those things from happening. So I started focusing on that and the other guy stayed wanted to do active shooter that was great but I broke off and started developing the content and everything that is currently in our prepared citizen program. Started using an LMS a learning management system and our program just like it is today is 90 days long. We use asynchronous microlearning to reinforce the development of habits and behaviors. But about seven months ago is when Paratus really transformed and we took the content that was in that learning management system and now it's on an interactive platform. So we have a process that I borrowed from the OODA loop process. It's a military process that Colonel John Boyd created a long time ago and turned it into a process for civilians to use. And it's again it's all about that preparation and our piece is developing the human capability. We were talking about, you know, active listening. That's one of the 10 critical personal skills we talk about. That's integral to our program. But that's what I've we're focused on now. We have a program for churches, for schools, for businesses, for everyday gun owners. We have an apprentice program. I mean it's all about again empowering that human capability and getting away from that the traditional information presentation that is out there that does nothing to actually you know prepare somebody to be able to prevent something from happening and in essence as well it doesn't prepare them to act if they have to. **[00:06:06]** Armando: That is incredible and thank you for your service. The transition from military service to the private sector is not always as smooth as some people would like it to be. We had Colonel Joe Frankie on the show I think like a year or two ago and he was talking about this how for some people in your case you went the entrepreneurial route, right? That's one way to do it. But some people want to get into jobs, right? And it's and it's hard. He was saying how it was hard because the names and the way you called things in the military space versus the private sector is different. And so someone might be extremely capable at logistics or engineering or design or whatever they did, but all the things that they know and the way they name those things is one way. And the and the way HR in a business calls them, it's completely different. So they would see the listings and they well, I don't know. I don't have anything any of these skills. And he was talking about how he would help them translate and say, "Oh, well, but you managed a platoon of I don't know 25 different things, right, with with different and so this applies for XYZ and so it translates directly. It's just hard to make that connection, right? Did did you see anything like that when you were doing that transition from the Brian: Military side to the private sector? Yeah. And I think that's why I lasted maybe 18 months with the defense contractor or one of the reasons u but my wife actually hit the nail on the head and I think that this happens with a lot of folks that come out of the military as well is for for however long you were there you had a mission right you had a defined mission. **[00:08:07]** And it was to serve your country and then do whatever you were trained to do in that in that regard. And when I was working for a defense contractor, I didn't have a mission. So, I was one of those people that needed to have a mission. And that's why the entrepreneur role for me. And if I hadn't gone into that, I probably would be working at a nonprofit somewhere. So, that I had a mission and I was support and my wife and I, we do a lot of that work anyway. In addition to what we do. But I would probably be doing that full-time if I wasn't, you know, in involved with this mission, which is to empower, like I said, the prepared citizen because we believe we need to take back responsibility in our country. We have to get away from expecting government to solve our problems because government doesn't solve problems. I think you probably agree with me on that. But the average citizen today doesn't have the tools to do a lot of the things that they did 20 or 30 years ago. And our argument at Paratus isn't that people can't do it. It's just that nobody has empowered them with the tools to do that. So we want our programs are designed to empower them with the tools to be able to develop the habits and behaviors and to get away like I said from the information presentations because let me ask you real quick. So human trafficking eight years ago, how how big of a business was it for the cartels do you think? Oh, I couldn't say numbers, but I expect it is Armando: A number we can't really find. Well, eight eight years ago, it was a Brian: Half a billion dollars. Today, it's going to exceed $20 billion. And if you go look at how much money our federal government, our state governments, and our municipalities have spent to try and pre present information to the American citizen about human trafficking. That's a very, very high number as well. But it went from a half a billion to 20 billion. So obviously we're not solving the problem. So if we want to solve problems, we have to empower the individual. And you empower the in individual by empowering them with tools, habits, behaviors, and capabilities. **[00:10:09]** So they can take that great information that we have on how to, you know, identify human trafficking or bullying or pick the pick the threat, but now they actually can do something about it because they're empowered to do something about it. That's the that's the difference that we look at Paratus. Armando: You talk about behavior and I think we should dive in a little deeper there because we all see you're at a restaurant, you go into the restroom and there's the sign for if you're a victim of human like you see those, right? We all see them, but it's a it's a paper and you're like, well, okay. And for someone maybe it does resonate and it's something important that they need to act on but who are they and what are they going to do and what's the process and should they be scared of speaking out I think there's a lot around that far more than what the little piece of paper can do at the stores. So, how do you help in that process of actually instilling a behavior change such that they can know what the next step might be, Brian: Right? So, they need to be empowered with the tools to be able to do that. And Tom and I talk all the time. Tom Leach, Colonel Tom Leach is my partner. He's a retired Army special forces. So, the two of us together are working on this. We talk all the time that you have to have the capability and the training, but then you also have to have the tools. And those tools aren't necessarily a tourniquet or something that that you actually hold in your hands. The tools are what you have you figured out for yourself that you're able to do to help solve a problem. So, I briefly mentioned at the at the during the opening about the OODA loop, observe, orient, decide, and act. It was again created by Colonel John Boyd from the United States Air Force. And it was designed for military when you're going into contact with the enemy that you observe, orient, decide, and act. **[00:12:11]** We already have a plan. We already have assets. But the enemy gets a vote. So you have to continually be doing that OODA loop and seeing what's going on, making changes, responding to what they do. Does that all make sense? You can't just take that and apply it to an everyday American because everyday Americans aren't prepared. They don't have the tools. So we created at Paratus the a five-step process that's identify, assess, predict, decide, and act. It's five steps, but you only do the first three steps on a regular basis. Basically, anytime you go somewhere. So if I walk into the same coffee shop that I've been in a hundred times, I identify. So kind of anything set off the hair on the back of my neck or you know, give me that gut feeling, right? Something that we as Americans have. It's a God-given gift, but you have to know what it is. You have to recognize it. And the way that you recognize it is by establishing and learning situational awareness. And the way that you do that is through this process. So you identify first and then you assess. So who am I sitting with? Am I meeting someone? Can I sit so my back's not to the door? Where are the restrooms? Is there an exit in the back? The list can go on and on. But then here's the unique thing we believe about our program is the predict phase. That's the third step. You think about then if this happens today, what would I do? How would I act? And a critical and a key point here is we at Paratus never tell somebody what to do. I can do things that my 5'2 lb wife can't do. So for me to be in a presentation and tell her in this situation, this is what you need to do. We work to empower each individual with what they're willing to do. And then when it's something that they're willing to do, the odds are they're going to be much more likely to actually then do it do something about it. That's how you overcome the, you know, potentially being embarrassed because you actually think about what you would do under those circumstances. So when you practice this process on a regular basis, you're consistently thinking about different things that you might do. **[00:14:19]** So I've thought through how to, you know, if I see somebody being human trafficked, what will I do? If I see somebody getting into an argument in a restaurant, how can I potentially help deescalate that? If I see somebody come into a coffee shop or a restaurant or on a train or something that I think is getting ready to do some kind of bad act, then what would I do about that? Would I go up and start a conversation to try and deescalate the situation to try and figure out what's going on? And we have so many stories of people that have gone transition from having some information about human trafficking to actually taking action when they thought they saw it happening. When they saw somebody behave differently than they normally did and started having a conversation with them and asked questions twice, not just once. Not, hey, how you doing? It's hey, how you doing? No, no, really, how are you doing? And they found out later that that person was thinking of committing suicide. There's a whole you know gallery of stories that we have of people once they learn and develop and practice this process that is how they become empowered to actually do something and that is how you prevent things from happening and that's by training again the human individual and a key part of the process those first three steps are are using the 10 critical personal skills that you need to be able to have situational awareness. And one of the reasons these are in our program is we know these are these are are hard numbers. This isn't us making this up. We know that 93 to 95% of the kids graduating from college do not have these skills anymore today. So they don't know how to be perceptive. They don't understand perspective. They don't listen actively listen. They don't think critically. They don't have humility. They don't have empathy. You have to practice all of these skills and you have to have learning agility. And one of the reasons we included it that way is you have to learn from your mistakes. **[00:16:19]** You should never think you have all the answers. And every situation is different. And that's why we talk about you have to practice this process everywhere you go. You can't just say, "Hey, I've been to this coffee shop a hundred times. I know everything about it." Well, I'm probably going to be different that day. I might be in a in a different mood than I was the day before. There's going to be different people that are there. The environment is going to be different. So that's why it's necessary to think through that all of the time. So what that replaces what that process replaces is the ability to have that preparedness like I talked about with the OODA loop. Now we're at the same point we were in the military where you're now going to go have contact with the enemy. The average individual now is prepared. So then if something does happen, they can decide and act and they can run this process, identify, assess, predict, decide and act as they're potentially dealing with a situation. The huge difference now is they have that preparedness to go along with it, which was was a key thing that was missing. You mentioned that little tingling sensation or something that you feel that's off that we all have and I agree with you. We all have this and it's usually right. The thing is do we know to listen to it and the proper response to us listening it as well. So, I want to dive into the first one. As people get more disconnected from interactions because they're always on their phones or tablets or computers or just overall not engaging with the real world, which unfortunately happens a lot. How do you help someone? And can it be practiced such that if they're not sensitive to that right now that they can become sensitive by practicing and learning to see and figure out, oh, oh, that's the thing. **[00:18:36]** Is there a way or are there any exercises that you do in the program or just out in the wild that people can do to sort of stimulate that in a way where they're like, "Oh, I didn't know that was there. That was what I was feeling, but I didn't really realize it." Well, that's almost like I gave you that question to ask me. So that's another key integral part of why we have the identify assess predict decide and act process especially those first three steps and why the identify is so important because as you pointed out most people today don't practice situational awareness they don't even really know what it is being on our phones have and everything has desensitized people but when you actually take 30 or 45 seconds and you identify and you look around and you pay attention to what's going on in your environment Then you do that assess stage and then you do the predict phase. Now your inner body, your inner being is aware of what is going on around you. And then when something changes that sets off that hair on the back of the neck or gives you that gut feeling, now you know that something actually has changed. So now you get back into your process and you try and figure out, okay, what caused this? Right? There have been plenty of times where I've gotten that hair on the back of the neck or the gut feeling and I was not able to identify it. And I've had my family, I've taken my family and we've left a location. We've left restaurants, we've gone somewhere else. Because I got that feeling because I trusted it. Now, I'm not sure I can think of a time where something happened bad happened after we left because you but you can't prove a negative. What if we would have stayed? Maybe, you know, then something might have happened. So, not being afraid to trust that hair on the back of the neck or that gut feeling. Quick story there. So, a young woman would drive to the same parking area to go run on a trail every single day. One day, she drove just like she did all the time. She got there and while she was sitting in the car, she got that hair on the back of the neck or that gut feeling, right? **[00:20:41]** Something wasn't in whether her sixth sense picked up somebody being there or you know God was letting her know hey something's not the same today got out of her car looked around didn't see anything she did not trust that hair on the back of the neck closed locked her door went for a run when she came back her car had been broken into her wallet and a number of other things were stolen from her vehicle so that's why we foot stomp in our program that if you ever get that hair in the back of the neck or that gut feeling you have to trust it and you have to be, you know, prepared to walk away or to be, you know, maybe change your location in the restaurant or, you know, some other thing that you might do, but or you're going to be more diligent. You're going to pay closer attention. And that happens a lot of times, too, is I'll go somewhere and there there'll be some people that, you know, maybe are a little sketchy to me. Whether they are or not, I don't necessarily know. But now my sense of awareness is heightened. So, I'm going to be paying a lot more attention to what's going on around myself and my family than I might, you know, otherwise. But it's you when you practice the process, you establish that situational awareness. Colonel Cooper developed his own colors years ago that we use in the military. It's Colonel Cooper's colors on situational awareness. It's goes white, yellow, orange, black, and red. What you want to do is get out of that white, which is the situation where you have no idea what's going on. You want to be in that yellow. You want to know what's going on around you. You want to set that picture in your mind about what that looks like. Then if something comes in, that's when you get that hair on the back of the neck or the gut feeling. Then you have to go back and again identify, assess, and predict and then decide and act if you need to. And one of the key things is that there's, you know, you alluded to it a little bit. There's no right or wrong answer here, right? It's based on your experiences, who you're with, where you are, and when you practice the predict phase regular often enough, you put yourself in that prepared position to know what you're capable of doing so you can actually make a decision and you can act. **[00:22:53]** Now, real quick to circle back, we were talking about behaviors and habits. It's anecdotal, but it's I believe it's a true statement. There's something called the 2190 rule. Have you ever Armando: Heard of that? No, I have not. Brian: So it's that it takes 21 days to establish a new habit and 90 days to establish a new behavior. So that is why our program is 90 days long. So that you actually have a program that empowers you to be able to practice this process for 90 days. And what we often see is somewhere around week three, week four, they're already practicing the process. Now they've already established the habits and behavior. There are some people that it takes longer. But the really nice thing about our program now, which I mentioned, is it is interactive. So, you have a when you do the scenarios, you go back and forth with the platform about how you would you would identify, assess, and predict in a specific situation. And it helps you develop things that you should look for, how you develop your own skills. You can tell the platform what you're already capable of, so it can use that. So, if you're somebody that carries a weapon or you're somebody that's trained in hand to hand, the platform can know that and it knows that you can maybe do more things or be prepared to do more things. Then, going back to my the example of my beautiful wife, she would I would never expect her or want her to do and react to the same type of situations that I would, right? She should remove herself almost 99% of the time instead of continuing on where it especially if my I'm with my family or there are other people around I'm going to put myself in a situation to you know be prepared to deescalate a situation or deal with a situation if I need to and those are all personal decisions Armando: Now that you mentioned I it re it reminded me of Stephen Covey and the seven habits of highly effective people when when you I remember I don't know why it stuck with me when I was a kid and we first read the book and I remember seeing those number I don't know if it's the exact numbers but the time it took to build a habit and it stuck with me and I said wow so if you just stick with something that amount of time it'll stick with you and it's true it works I'm sure it works and the fact that you did it instead of choosing a random number of our program is 14 days or 21 days. **[00:25:20]** Something that sounds nice for marketing. It's actually based on data that people will build that Brian: Habit out of doing it again and again. Yeah. And like I said, it varies on the individual and it also varies based on certain capabilities, right? So you may pick up certain thing. I mean, if you if you think about it, how many times have you made a New Year's resolution? H I know I made tons of them. But then if I go back and look at did I actually turn that into a habit and behavior? Is it something I said I was going to do and a week later I was I was right back doing what I was was doing prior to that. Right. This also go so Tom and I used a lot of things to develop the process. We believe it actually it's God that gave us all of our experiences over the last 38 years to be able to do this. But it's through that our military background and also the time that we've spent playing sports that has really driven the need about how you develop habits and behaviors and that you do that through practice. So you need a process to be able to you know practice the development of those habits and behaviors the 10 critical skills. Otherwise you're you're just getting information. Same thing that that has been happening over and over and over again. And I'm not sure you can see it. I it's out of the out of the camera view, but right behind me is Armando: Einstein's definition of insanity, which is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That's what we've been doing for 30 years. So, we believe that we need to change the way we empower people. That's how they become a prepared citizen and then that is how we take back that responsibility and all the citizens come together to make our community safe, to make their workplace safe, to make the church safe. That is how we're going to make that difference. But we need to empower people with the ability to do that. One of the things you were talking about with doing it again and again, but to get to put another phrase to it, a baseline of what is normal or what is the status quo or what is why I typically expect and based on that when something gets out of that you can detect it otherwise you don't know it's just a series of random events and it's like even the watches you have an Apple Watch or a smartwatch. **[00:27:49]** If you've never taken your pulse, if you've never checked your heart rate or things like that or your sleep patterns, you don't know if something's off. But if you know that traditionally or typically you have a specific baseline and suddenly it dips tremendously or it goes up, now you know, okay, maybe I need to do something about it. Whether it's food or exercise or go to the doctor, whatever, but at least you have something that tells you that something's different. Is that Brian: Sort of why it h why it helps? Well, by practicing the process and by identifying and like I said, you take that picture of what is around you and I do believe it is a, you know, the hair on the back of the neck, the gut feeling, it is a god-given gift that we have. So, but if you're if you're don't know what is going on around you, if you're on your phone all the time, if you don't have situational awareness, then it's very very difficult to be able to have that to get that hair on the back of the neck or that gut feeling, much less trust it, then much less act on it. Now, I think to your what you were talking about, so I've got a smartwatch and I, you know, track my sleep and a lot of other things that are on there. So, it's a tool that I use and I do make changes based on, you know, if I was up for, you know, a long time the day before and didn't get a good night's sleep, then I'll do different things. So, I hopefully get a good night's sleep the next night or I might not work out or, you know, there's a lot of decisions that I make based on having those tools. And developing situational awareness, knowing what your capabilities are, practicing the 10 critical skills is somewhat the same as that because you're empowering yourself with, you know, knowing what you're capable of doing, knowing what's going on around you, empowering yourself with those skills. And then our point is the more people that have those skills and can take care of one another, that is how you make a difference. And I talked about Einstein's definition of insanity. You know, our first program is for parents. It's for parents to have the ability to make sure their kids learn and develop these skills. **[00:29:50]** So when they get ready to leave the home, they have situational awareness. They have these 10 critical skills. They can pay attention to what's going on around them. They're they know what they're capable of doing. And that is how fear is taken away. Tom and I recently did a presentation at one of the high schools here in North Texas to parents and young girls at a high school that are getting ready to go to college. You may or may not know, but the first 6 months of college for a young girl is one of the most dangerous times of their entire life. And that is why it is so critical for parents to put the time in to make sure their their daughters learn these necessary skills, and have that situational awareness, know what to do in certain situations, and even more importantly, know how to not put themselves in situations that could be dangerous. So that they can now because their parents aren't there, they can be looking out for their own safety, their own awareness, but even more than that, paying attention to what's going on with their friends so they can keep their friends safe. And then that is how young girls in college, using this as an example, how they all stay safe because they all watch each other and look out for each other. That's something that I think we all need to focus on a little more which is as parents we want to take care of our kids but sometimes we don't know how to do some things like if you have a girl as a child and you want them to be safe you're in this conundrum of okay so should I put them in martial arts s. Should I put them in self-defense class? Should I put them in this or that? Or should I do some situational awareness training? Do we even know that situational awareness training exists? And that's a tough thing to decide because sometimes you think about the martial arts aspect just as an example like yes, that way they'll defend themselves. **[00:31:56]** Okay, which of the should I put them in? And I don't want them to be combative, but I want them to be able to defend themselves. But at the same time, I mostly want them to get out of potentially being in the situation. So what does a parent do to I don't know do the right thing and have a better understanding of and I'm asking you as an expert as a parent is it worth it to the parent themselves even before the girls get to that age or the boys get to the to the age for the parents to take these sort of trainings and courses so that they're prepared to then have them be prepared later on. Well, the parents need to be empowered with the skills so that they can impart these skills to their kids. And I'll give you an example here in a second. But when people ask me, you know, should my son or daughter be in a martial arts, I say, if it's not if it's something that you're okay with and they're okay with, then I recommend jiu-jitsu, right? That is my choice for somebody that is getting involved because you learn how to defend yourself. You learn how to put yourself in a in how to get out of situations. And it's not a violent not everybody can can be violent. So, if I have parents that ask me, you know, what martial art should my I put my kids in, that's what I would recommend. Secondly, I talk to parents about how important it is, I believe, that their kids do some kind of sport, whether it's organized or not organized. You that's where discipline is learned. That's where failure is learned. And I think that that's one of the things that's missing out there is parents don't let their kids fail anymore. It's, you know, we have to have the guard rails that are out there, but letting them make mistakes and learn from those mistakes is extremely critical and that is how they learn and develop the 10 critical skills. And then let me share how Tom and I ensured our kids learned and developed the skills that we're talking about, right? **[00:34:02]** So, you know, when my kids were young, we would go out to a restaurant or Disney or wherever and I would briefly tell them, "Hey, this is where we're going. This is what we're doing. This is what we need to look out for. If you see this, if you see that, you need to, you know, need need to tell mom or dad, right? So be aware of these things to look for. Obviously you tell them don't leave. You give them code, you know, code phrases if somebody comes up to them if you get separated, all those types of things. So you give them a briefing, something from our military time or something from, you know, the time in our athletics. But then when we would be out enjoying ourselves, I would find learning opportunities, you know. So if you're in a restaurant, I go, "Hey, to my to my three kids, so where's the nearest fire extinguisher?" Or, "Where is where's the exit today?" Or, you know, you know why dad's sitting here, right? Because dad can't sit with his back to the door. And I was rewarded years later when my oldest daughter at the time, we walked into a restaurant with with friends, and her 14-year-old friend went to sit in the seat that my daughter knew that I needed to sit in. And so, she told her friend, "I'm sorry, you can't sit there. My dad has to sit there." And her 14-year-old friend said, you know, kind of like, you know, 14-year-old girls do. I'm Why does your dad have to sit here? My daughter spouted out, you know, my dad has to sit so his back's not to the door. He's got to see the exits and he'll have a plan to you know to take if something happens. But so through learning opportunities that is how they my kids developed the habits and behaviors and the things to look out for and to develop that situational awareness and I will tell you that today the phones that we all have the devices that we all have is one of the you know I call train a fiveletter word because we don't like to train people we empower people and phones are another I guess that's what a sixletter or is it a fiveletter word. I can't do math right now. **[00:36:04]** But too many people don't use those as the tool they're supposed to be. And that is what takes away situational awareness. And here's the issue and why I brought it up is what we're finding statistically is parents, adults are spending just as much time on those devices as their kids are. So if you if you've got young children in the house and you tell them you can't be on the phone or you can't do this, you can't do that, but you are doing that. You are on your phone all the time, you're setting the wrong example. Tom and I talk all the time and make the comment that a lot of parents don't think their kids listen to them and they don't think their kids watch them and pay attention to them. The opposite is exactly true. They listen to everything that we say. They watch everything that we do and then they look for the for the contradictions, right? You know, mom says that I can't be on my phone, but she's on her phone all the time, right? I'm reminded of a of a drive-thru commercial. I think it was at Starbucks. Yeah, it was at Starbucks. And the mom and dad are in their front seat and the little daughter's in the back seat. And the mom is driving and she orders coffee and the girl little girl in the back seat goes, "Mom, I want a cookie." I don't know if you've ever seen this commercial. And the mom goes, "No, we have cookies at home." And the little girl in the back seat goes, "We have coffee at home, too." Right? So you know our kids watch and listen you know listen to everything that we say and watch everything we do. They look for those contradictions. So we need to empower and have our own behavior so that they learn the best habits and behaviors to make them successful in life. And another pet peeve of mine I guess is that you may hear I know I hear all the time that the 10 critical personal skills are supposed to be taught in school. That's can't be further from the truth. In school you're supposed to learn math, science, history, English, you know, the tools that you need to be successful to then if you're going to go on and get a higher degree to have that foundation. **[00:38:06]** The numbers we're seeing of the reading and math rates coming out today are terrible, but also the kids don't have those skills and they don't have those skills because their parents aren't teaching it to them. Armando: So that's one of the reasons why our foundational program is targeted to give parents the tools to be able to empower their kids. I really like your example of the Disneyland type activity where you looked for opportunities for them to gify what you actually want them to learn because it's still fun. Instead of find the red door handle, you can say find the exit or the extinguisher or whatever. But that sticks to them and like you just said with them always paying attention which is completely true. I see it all the time. We have little kids. It's very interesting to see especially when you see them pretend play together if you're observing they'll do a lot of the things that happen in the house right so whatever whatever things happen in the house they're sort of doing and then they'll pretend they'll do that like that I'm going to work thing or whatever you've seen the cartoons as well right the blueie does does a nice episode about that and it's they are paying attention so if you are doing things that you want to exemplify, then they will start to mimic that as they grow, like it happened to you. And it will be something embedded in them that was not just taught and read, but actually experienced, which is super Brian: Valuable. Exactly. I mean, I couldn't I couldn't say that any better. The other two things I do want to talk about along this line is positive reinforcement goes much further than negative reinforcement. Right? So you don't they your kids are not going to stop doing something because you're you're yelling at them unless you give them the alternative and then you make it a positive reinforcement for that. **[00:40:10]** Right. Have you ever heard the name Scott Donald? Scott Donald. So I've seen him on he helps parents with skills you know to impart to their kids and one of the things that he talks about is giving them responsibilities. So when their kids his kids get to be a certain age and a and the family goes out to a restaurant that young young son or young daughter has to order dinner for the entire family. Oh. So they have to ask dad, ask mom, ask their siblings, what do you guys want for dinner? What do you want? Know exactly what they want. And then what the waitress comes up or waiter comes up, they have to give the order for the entire family. So they have to practice their critical skills. They have to communicate. They have to think critically. All of these things that we don't empower our kids to do at a young age to empower them to be successful in the future. And that goes back to so what his entire point here is to give them the tools to be successful and then reinforce those and then give that positive reinforcement when they do something. The other thing that he does that just popped into my head and it goes back to the comment about positive reinforcement. If you have friends around you and all of your friends and you all have kids all about the same age. If all of the adults pay attention to what all of the kids are doing and let's say you know I'm hanging out with you and your wife and I'm paying attention to what your kids are doing and one of your kids does something really great. I go up to your up to your son or daughter and I said, "Man, that was fantastic. You did a great job." that will carry more weight as a positive reinforcement coming from somebody other than mom and dad than if mom and dad did it. So when you have a group of families together that are looking out for each other and you see the consistent theme here. **[00:42:16]** We have prepared citizens who take back responsibility and then they all work together to help out each each other and each other's family. That's how it used to be done and Tom and I would like to get back to that. Armando: That's true. I've seen it. I've seen it when when someone in the group goes and gives a compliment to one of the their their eyes light up. They're they're like because it's something diff someone else like you said it's not like oh my mom had you have to say that you're my mom right they expect the parents are going to do it right but when somebody else does it that's why it's so p so powerful. M there's a thing that people especially on social and when we do the shorts because we do video shorts of course people will troll the comments and things like that especially when we talk about like preparedness of you sitting by the door someone's going to say oh he's paranoid or things like that right and how do you differentiate and I know there's like huge difference but differentiate being paranoid versus Brian: Being prepared or situationally aware. Yeah. So, there are are people that are paranoid out there. There's a lot of things that are going on in our country. But one of the things that we know from a human capabilities standpoint is that when you are prepared and you're not afraid because you have already thought through what you're going to do, how you're going to react and deal with a potential situation, you're comfortable with your own skills and you've thought through all of those. You're comfortable with the skills of those around you and there is a plan then you become actually less fearful and less paranoid because you are prepared. That is one of the key things that we see all the time and it's the same thing you know in the military or being an athlete. I used to chomp at the bit to go fly because I was prepared. I did all the work ahead of time. If we were flying into a situation where, there was, you know, potential risks, then of course you were concerned about those, but you weren't afraid because you were prepared. **[00:44:23]** Same thing if I was getting ready to go on the wrestling mat or on the football field or on the baseball field because we had done all the work ahead of time. Yeah, there's still, you don't know what's going to happen because you're going to, you know, have a game against somebody else and they get a say into what's going on, but you have prepared yourself. So, you're not afraid, you're not paranoid. You're prepared. And that's the that's the distinction. And I'm not going to lie, if you if you just go and you talk to somebody that is paranoid about certain things, me just telling them that being prepared is how you get out of that, it isn't until they actually experience that and recognize that yes, and there may still be a little bit of paranoia there. And to be perfectly frank with what's going on in our country and in our world today, having a little bit of that paranoia, being concerned about the things that are going on, how do we, you know, fix some of the things that are going on? Is probably a right thing to do, right? Is part of our program. We have a kit that families can buy so that they have, you know, food, water, filtration, blankets, their a place to put their medicine, all the things that you might need if the power goes out. Or god forbid it's something even worse than just the power going out for a few days. And then we have a checklist. People can determine what they want based on, you know, where they live, what their own capabilities are, how much they want to put into that. And we've got people that will just have three or four days and we've got people that have a month's worth of stuff to include how they're going to defend their home, you know, the whole spectrum. But that's the one of the things about our programs is we don't nobody fits into a mold. Everybody has to figure out for themselves what they're capable of doing. And being able to use the tools that are in that kit are also a key part of our program where you have to learn and develop these skills, develop the habits and behaviors. And that is how you're successful. And one thing I also want to throw in before I forget, that's unique about our program is it's like I said, it's not an active shooter program. **[00:46:32]** It's not a human trafficking program, a suicide. It's all of the threats that are out there. But one of the things that Tom and I foot stomp all the time is that if you have a program at work, for example, about safety and you think that that's going to keep you safe because you're you're going to be safe at work. Our position is you have to be prepared to be safe everywhere. You can't just have a program that is designed to keep you safe in the work environment. That's why our program is something that you practice this process everywhere that you go on a regular basis. So it's not just at work, it's not just at church, it's not just when you get in your car, it's not just at the grocery store or the coffee shop. It's everywhere. And you learn and develop these these skills and tools and capabilities. Armando: That makes perfect sense. It's not an isolated thing to be prepared, right? Although sometimes it's treated that way. Even in IT, I've come from the software space and there's all the cyber security training sometimes that they give people and it's all very specific and very narrow to their specific job role. And I was just talking with someone the other day and I explained how one of these large crypto companies was hacked recently and billions were lost etc. He didn't understand how it happened and I explained really the social engineering attacked it. He said, "I worked in a bank for 20ome years and they never explained what you just explained to me." Like, and it's that they might give you some training. I'm not generalizing, but you know, they might give you some training, but they focus it too much in that little thing. Whereas the bigger scope of vulnerability is much larger if you expand into the home computer or the house or the way you interact with people, the phones that you use, etc. And I'm just giving the example from from the space that I know. But what you're explaining makes perfect sense to me because it is something that should be **[00:48:38]** Brian: All around. Absolutely. You know, you should know not to click on something, not just at work, but also at home and especially if you might bring your work computer home. Now, you're in a different environment. So you might click on something, but that's also the critical thinking that goes into the our program, right? When you when you see something and you it's out of the ordinary and you don't just automatically click on it. You actually think about what it is that you need to do. Here, there goes my hair. And in our program, we talk about that. We talk about cyber. That's one of the threats that we talk about. And one of the reasons you become more aware of it is because we talk about it five or six times over 90 days. So it's not just something that you get once like a traditional piece of information. We reinforce that. And then like I to your point, we're not just talking about it in the work environment. We're talking about it on your home computer. You know, if you're on your phone, how all of these things, you know, if you know, something you get an email from a bank that you've never done business with and they want you to click on something, you have to ask the question, why is the why are they sending me this? Is this real? And then we have the tools today to find out if a lot of things are if this is a, you know, some type of scam. You can go into chat GPT or Claude or your your preferred and explain what happened. And he goes, "Yeah, they'll come back and they'll tell you that sounds sounds fishy. I would not click on that." You know, so I that's a great example. One of the things you said earlier about the importance of kids, well, not just kids to be in sports or any performance type activity. Could be the arts as well. Armando: Yep. I look at it from experience when I used to do musical performance in college. If I had practiced with with the rest of the band, if we had practiced everything, when a concert came, even though we were playing for 1500 people, you would just went up there, you played, you get a little nervous, but it is good, right? **[00:50:56]** Because you perform well, but you're not terrified of it. But if you hadn't practiced enough, even if it's a small concert, you start getting nervous. And that nervousness is the lack of preparedness. I think so. That's just an example of how you feel. And that the problem is that when you're nervous because you weren't prepared enough, your mind and I don't know the science behind this, but your mind will go into this sort of mode where it's trying to similar to what you said at the beginning where where you're trying to follow a script and so you're trying to focus on do the thing and so if something goes wrong, you sort of go blank and then can't continue with what you were doing. Whereas if you were fine and had practiced enough then something goes wrong even someone can just like three of the band members can change the thing you will be able to judge what happened and go with it even if something went wrong because you're just relaxing. You're just doing the thing that you practice a lot for. Brian: Exactly. No. Exactly. You don't rise to an occasion. You fall to the level of your preparation. And I'm going to not quote this exactly right and I can't remember who said it, but it was a professional coach and some of the players were talking about, you know, wanting to get into the game so that they could practice the skills that they learned. And he was very very clear when he talked to his players and said, "I'm sorry, you don't practice in the game. We have to be ready to perform in the game." So all of the practice has to be done before we step on the field for the game or the match or whatever. So this just another way to describe what you just talked Armando: About. Absolutely. It all comes together right at the end. If we are doing things that help us grow and help us be prepared, you sort of get these consequences that come along with it. **[00:52:58]** And so everything that you've been talking about with the critical skills that kids should have and grown-ups should have, everyone should have. By us practicing maybe the first three, it'll be easier to practice the next three and the next three and the next and then they start working together and it becomes easier, I think, to create these habits and become a more well-rounded individual. Not only to socialize and enjoy life, etc., but also to be prepared to help support each other in case anything were to happen. Brian: No, exactly. And the irony is that all 10 critical skills are are pretty much practice every time you do your process. So it's not like you just do a few of them here or there. Now in certain circumstances you may just you know somewhere along the process you may get to the communicating piece. So you're practicing one of those but you've already practiced most of the others when you go through the identify assess and predict. And then it's whether you actually communicate or not. And Tom and I talk about and I use the example with our kids. We do briefings and that's from my time flying airplanes. It's from his time. It's from time in, you know, in sports. So having something written down, the chances you're going to remember it. The chances that everybody knows what the plan is are are low. But when you turn it into a briefing, when you turn it into conversation, everybody then knows what their role and responsibility is. What is expected in certain situations, then it's also remembered and the chances that you'll actually then be able to act go way up. So that's why all of practicing all these skills and that situational awareness and using those learning opportunities with your kids or doing that mental briefing in your head of the process that's what prepares you to rise to that occasion because you have prepared now instead of falling to falling to no preparation. **[00:55:00]** So yep I agree with everything you talked about. I like the like I can I can imagine you at Disney doing the brief like like going with your kids. Okay kids, this is what we're going to do. And it sounds like a pitch to prepare for the game, right? Or like a military. But I mean it makes it makes a lot of sense because then everyone will know what to do if X happens, Y happens, Z happens, or if all goes according to plan. And we sometimes don't do that. We just go into it. But then someone gets separated from the group and it's chaos. How do you find them? Where are they going? You've just took 60 seconds to do that Armando: Briefing. Everyone will just at least have it in a corner of their mind so that if someone comes to assist and asks them, did you think of a meeting point? If something happened, they might be, "Oh, yeah, Brian: Yeah, yeah." Right. Yeah. So, you know what you find with your kids or anybody that you're out with, whether you know on a job site or, you know, if you're going hunting, all those types of things when you vocalize and you actually do a briefing, that reinforces in everybody. And also that allows that, you know, a picture to be in your mind about what you should be looking for and what you should be expecting. And you should never take anything for granted. I use the hunting example all the time. You know, guys could have been hunting, you know, for years. They could be going to the same place they've been to year after year after year. It's easy to take that situation for granted, right? But the weather could be different. It could be slippery. There's a whole host of things that could be different. So conducting a short briefing so everybody's on the same sheet of paper. Everybody knows what the plan is. If something happens, what they're supposed to do if unexpected weather comes in, what they're supposed to do. You know, the same thing applies with your family if you're at Disney or even, you know, just in a restaurant or those types of things. And it, you know, it could be prepared for a bad thing. It could be prepared for just something out of the ordinary that happens. You know, you're at a restaurant and the power goes out. **[00:57:02]** What is everybody going to do? Well, obviously we can't eat there, but what's, you know, depending on how old your kids are, they've got to listen to you, right? You know, do you what age do you let your kids go to the bathroom by themselves? Armando: And then making sure that you they know what to do when they do that. You know, all of those types of things. It's in our opinion it's best when you actually talk about it and it's part of a those learning opportunities. And again that's based on our experience in athletics and our experience in the military that you know putting something into a briefing like I said ensures everybody knows what's on the sheet of music. You re refreshing everybody's mind. You refocus in everybody's mind. And one of the reasons we got into the trades is a number of accidents happened. In pipe fitters and electrical work because they weren't focused because they had a piece of written paper that was done two days prior. People weren't on the same same page. They weren't focused and something happened. And those kinds of accidents cost money, but they can also cost lives. So that's why this transcends, you know, every area that is out there. Speaking of hunting, there's there's weapons, right? And weapons are are a big topic of conversation. We some people try to make it controversial, but at the end of the day, it's a tool like you were saying before. Now, the same thing I think applies with weapons. Someone might be an expert and have been using them for years, but if they are not practicing the situational awareness and preparedness properly or getting proper training or upskilling in it, then they might just be handling in their home the way they handle it for themselves. Maybe they live alone, maybe they just live with their partner. But what if kids come to visit? **[00:59:05]** What if they have to go on holiday? What if like there's different scenarios that they might not have considered that can become dangerous and if they become just accustomed then that's when accidents happen. Can you talk to us a little bit about how preparedness works for because you mentioned it earlier the everyday gun owner. Brian: Right. So we actually have a specific program which is the everyday gun owner program and it is designed to do that left of bang training that continual practicing of the process but also to learn and ask yourself some of the difficult questions that need to be asked before you even think about using a weapon in a situation to defend yourself or to defend somebody else. So what we do is we take our foundational program and then we overlay between 22 and 30 pieces of content onto that program and that additional content focuses on like I said the first difficult question is so have you really thought through are you ready to take somebody's life? Are you ready to point a gun at somebody and pull the trigger? Have you thought through what that means to you? And the truth is that most people have never even thought of that. Something happened. They got scared. They decided they wanted to have a gun in their home or a gun in their car. But they didn't ask and make that big decision upfront and be comfortable with that decision before they even made that decision. So, that is one of the key things that we talk about. Then, obviously, we're practicing the process everywhere that we go. But now, if you're a gun owner, you have to add the responsibility of when and where you might have that weapon, right? So, if you're somebody like myself and Tom and you carry everywhere, a part of our process every time we go somewhere is how would how and when would we use that weapon? And we are much more likely to leave a situation because we don't ever want to be put in a situation where we have to use that weapon unless it's a last resort, right? So we are consistently thinking through the process of how we would use that weapon. **[01:01:09]** We instill in our program that wherever you are wherever and however you're going to have that weapon, you practice with that on a regular basis. So, I can't tell you how many of our friends who go to the range and there are great shots, but the gun never leaves their nightstand. The gun never leaves the glove box. They never think through how would they do those mechanics in a dangerous situation. And so, for example, in our everyday gun owner program, in the program, if you're somebody that's going to defend your home, we ask you to get your gun out at least once a week. Do a press check on it. Know what's there. In addition, every night before you go to bed, you have to think through, because you alluded to this, you have to think through who's in the house, who isn't in the house, how would I defend my home tonight? We have adult kids. Sometimes they're in the house, sometimes they're not. We have a 60 lb German shorthaired pointer that is going to be a missile that goes out of the bedroom, you know, if somebody tries to get into our house. So, all of those things need to be thought about every single night. And that's what I think about every single night. How am I going to defend my home? My wife knows what the plan is, right? If my kids are home, I have to defend the home differently because now I have to leave the bedroom. And it depends on whether there's somebody upstairs or downstairs as to how I'm going to defend the home and while we wait for emergency responders to get there. And notice I didn't call them first responders. Law enforcement and EMTs and fire are emergency responders. We need to be the first responders. And especially if you're using a weapon, it's got to be carried that way. So, like I said, if I'm carrying a weapon on my person before I leave the house, I go through those processes. Before I go into a coffee shop, I think about how would I potentially use my weapon if something happens here. If I have it if I have it in my vehicle, I think about the same things. It used to drive my wife crazy. We'd be driving by a police officer who's pulled somebody off on the side of the road. And as we're coming up on that, I'm watching exactly what's going on to make sure that that law enforcement officer isn't under duress. **[01:03:13]** So, I would be potentially prepared to, you know, to help out if I saw something was going on in that situation. But the other thing that needs to be part of that is going back to that original question. What are you prepared to do? I'm a run to the gunfire kind of person as soon as I know that my family's safe. I've got friends of mine that are former Secret Service and former law enforcement, former military that they're going to protect their family and that's all they're going to do. And there's nothing absolutely wrong with that. But deciding that ahead of time is extremely important. And then our everyday gun owner program is powered by firearm legal protection because knowing what the law is extremely important. So we talk about that. And then we're also partnered with decent consulting and the Texas gun gun rights here in Texas to protect our second amendment rights in Texas and across the country. All of us are working together with this program for everyday gun owners. That's very interesting because it's not and this it's not just for for guns but the concept I think is a mind shift for many of us of okay you have the thing whatever the tool might be right and okay you know how to use it at the range in this case or elsewhere whatever the tool might be but practicing actually getting it out the holster many times or quickly or from being sitting down or from walking or from under the bed or from the stairs or what happens if you were not in the bedroom. How do you get like all those scenarios? If you just have never practiced any of them, you can't practice all of them, but if you have never practiced any of these possible scenarios, then are you prepared? And I think what you're alluding to that it makes perfect sense to me. It's just a logical thing to do just like anything else. **[01:05:17]** If I if I think, oh yes, when I get a baseball bat because they ask me to go play, I'm just I'm just going to hit the ball and I'm going to do well, but I've never actually held a bat and tried to hitting some balls, probably not going to hit the ball. Or even if you have, but it's been years, you know, and you haven't practiced that. So we created this program because of Tom when he moved to Texas. He took the license to carry test and it's, you know, kind of a joke, right? You get a little card that says that you're you can carry carry concealed. Gives you a lot of law, but what we know is the forgetting curve is real and people forget between 95 and 98% of what was in that kind of program unless it's something that they think about and it's part of the habits and behaviors that they've established. So that is one of the key reasons that we developed that program and because you know Tom saw firsthand that people aren't prepared and we see all the time like I said you know people have their gun in the nightstand it's been there for 6 months they don't even remember if it's loaded because they don't check it on a regular basis. And here's the other thing Tom and I talk about is we believe that to your point about the practice, we believe that gun ranges for the most part give a false sense of security. Because if you go to a gun range, if you've ever been there, you this will resonate 100%. If you haven't, well, you know, something new to think about is that you have to bring your gun in a case. The weapon and ammo have to be separate. You've got range officers that are watching your safety. You stand behind a platform. You take your weapon out. You load your weapon. You shoot at a paper target. You're not drawing it. You're not doing it under stress. You're not There's not a human being on the other side of the paper target, you may be a great shot, but to your point of some of the things that you listed, if you've never practiced drawing your weapon, how you carry it. If you've never practiced getting your weapon out of your nightstand, if you've never practiced getting your weapon out of you know your glove box or wherever you might keep it in your car, if you've never practiced that, the odds of you being able to do that successfully are pretty low. **[01:07:32]** But if you if you practice that once a week and nothing in the in the weapon, you just practice what you're doing. Practice taking that weapon and clearing your home once a week. And then every night you think through, okay, this is what I would do in this situation. Or every time you get in your car or if you're carrying in a in a coffee shop, this is what I would do. I've practiced drawing my weapon. I've been to the range. I know that I can hit my target. And the chances of actually hitting the target go way up when you have thought through all the mechanics. When you have thought through and given yourself that picture of what you want to do, when you've actually drawn that weapon or have have taken it from wherever it was for the scenario that you're ready to use it, now the chances of actually hitting the target go way up. And the chances of you defending yourself go way up. And the chances, especially out in public, of not having somebody take away your weapon because you're distracted and you're trying to draw it when you haven't practiced drawing it. Whole whole host of things that go into that that can just be, you know, not 100% eliminated because to your point, no matter how well you're prepared in a stressful situation where you might have to pull the trigger or somebody's going to be shooting at you're going to be scared to death. But if you're if you don't have any preparation, you will not be able to deal with the situation. Armando: That makes a lot of sense. One of the things that you mentioned right now like clearing the house that that that sort of lingo that that a lot of people will not might not be familiar with. Can you can you explain it in a non Brian: Gun owner or gun efficient? Yes. So, you what we're talking about there is, so in our house when it's just my wife and I, if we, if our dog goes crazy or we hear something, and I'm a pretty light sleeper, so chances are I'm going to hear something. She won't, but I will. **[01:09:33]** I have her get I wake her up. I have her get on her phone, dial 911, explain what's going on, and I'm taking my weapon. We're both on a specific side of the bed, so we have some cover and my gun is pointed at the door and I'm prepared to pull the trigger until any threat that might try to enter my bedroom is neutralized or until law enforcement gets there, right? And there are scenarios where I've actually thought through firing a warning shot because I don't I don't want to kill somebody. And if somebody knows I'm in there with a weapon, maybe they'll they'll leave our house, right? But if I've got somebody in one of the upstairs bedrooms or downstairs, I can't just stay in my bedroom and keep them protected. So when I talk about clearing the house now, it means I actually have to leave my bedroom. And if I have one of our daughters in the upstairs bedroom, now all I have to do is defend the upstairs. My wife and I are upstairs, our daughter's upstairs. So I can find cover and conceal them upstairs. And if anybody tries to come up the stairs, then I can do something. But if we actually have one of our family member or friends or somebody over, I will have to actually walk through the house now and go down the stairs. So that's clearing the house, right? And it's also clearing because sometimes or hopefully all the time in this situation, you heard a noise, you're going to go out and you're going to look. Nobody's going to be there. It was something that happened or you know somebody made a noise so they left so maybe somebody did try to break into your home. But it you're you're clearing the home to find out if there is a threat. Putting yourself where you need to be to protect your family from that threat if it is there. And then if it isn't a threat, you know, be there because your wife has already called 911 or my wife has already called 911. So I want to be there to meet, you know, law enforcement when they get there. And my wife will already be on the phone as well telling them, you know, my husband has walked through the house. **[01:11:39]** We didn't see anything. He didn't see anything. He is going to be, you know, just inside the front door when when the officers get there. So, that communication is important as well, right? Armando: Okay. Yes. Well, you bring up an excellent point, which is staying in your room, right? So for a lot of people that don't have anyone in the house, they might absolutely not know what to do because it's a very stressful and strange situation to be in and might want to go out and try to make the person leave. I think one of the instincts is like you want them to get out of the house and so but they don't think it through that the safest thing is very likely to just stay in that one place that you know is safe. And protect that space. Is that accurate? Brian: No. So, it's interesting. I see on TV all the time on dramas or something, you know, there's a noise in the house and the wife gets up and walks out into the main room, you know, without a weapon to see what the noise was instead of doing what I just talked about is putting yourself in a situation to be able to defend the home as much as possible. And it is also important to think through what you would do if you don't have a weapon, right? You know, so if I still in, you know, if I didn't have a weapon would and I heard a noise in the house, I'm still going to go out and I'm going to see if I can find out what's going on. Especially if it if I if the upstairs daughter is at home or we've got people in the downstairs bedroom, I want to be able to know what is going on and be in a position best I can to protect them. But if nobody's here, we're just going to be on the phone and I'm going to let law enforcement get here and figure out what is going on. If it's a if it's an absolute noise that I don't want it, what it know what it is and it shouldn't be there, especially if my dog's going off. Like I said, somebody maybe is in the house, somebody tried to get into the house. **[01:13:41]** U, but I'm going to wait for them to get there first before I do that. And going back to how do you figure out what somebody's going to do? My wife predominantly is not going to leave the bedroom. The daughters are not going to leave the bedroom. They're going to dial 911. They're going to barricade behind the beds if I'm not home. And they're going to wait for law enforcement to get there. And you know, my wife will there are weapons in our bedroom that she can use, but there are no no weapons in the other bedroom. So, if somebody's in those bedrooms, lock the door, get behind or under the bed and, you know, pray right for law enforcement to get here. But it's all based going back to what we talked about based on what people are capable of doing and what they're prepared to do. And that our everyday gun owner, that's what it's all about is figuring out not only how to behave and act in certain situations, but to think through those difficult decisions that you might have to make and then be prepared to make those decisions. There are many stories of gun owners who did not, you know, make those difficult decisions and when it came time to pull the trigger, they weren't able to pull the trigger and they then lose their life or somebody else loses their life. Make those decisions ahead of Armando: Time. This has been very enlightening. It's we covered so much ground today and I'm glad we did because even though we went a little bit past our usual time, I think this is information that our listeners need to hear and it's going to be very helpful because that way people at least know what's out there, how they can be better prepared, what types of things they can do and of course learn more about your program and how that can help someone take the next step. **[01:15:42]** Speaking of, if you were to give a recommendation to any of our listeners who who want to be better prepared for themselves, for their family, for their business, what do you suggest they do to start getting into that process? Brian: Well, they contact the Paratus Group and if they're a family, they enroll in our prepared citizen program. If they're a business owner, if they're concerned about their church, contact the Paratus Group so that we can set up a custom program for your church, or for your business. One of the things we talk about is we have a bunch of different pillars. That's the everyday gun owner program, apprentice program, church program, foundational program, but when you develop the skills in any one of those programs, it carries over to your everyday life. So there's the what we call the multiplying effect or the ripple effect. And we've just specialized it because some people want to make their church more safe. When everybody in their church learns and understands how the security team works, where are the exits, what is the expectation? What are my roles and responsibilities? Then that church community will keep the church safe. Not just the security team, the community is going to be able to help the security team keep that church safe. Same thing in the apprentice program, gun owner program, and if it's a business program, again, that's where we customize it based on, you know, what are where are their offices? Are, you know, are they glass doors, where are the exits, fire extinguishers, how long is the response time, is there security in the building, do they do they have their own? There's so many of these things that go into that that we add into the content so that they're aware of it and they use all of the information as they're developing these habits and behaviors. So they can go to the contact page at www.paratus.group. They can email at info@paratus.group. They can find us on Facebook certainly find me on LinkedIn. There's a lot of ways to get a hold of us so that we can put together that that specific program for them. **[01:17:51]** And again, one of the organizations we love to have conversations with our PTAs parent teacher organizations. I guess that's PTO. So that we can bring a program to parents in those communities so that the their kids can learn and develop these skills because Tom and I would love nothing more than for parents especially of younger kids to learn and develop these skills. Make sure their kids learn and develop these skills. So 12 or 15 years from now we have prepared citizens and prepared communities where everybody is looking out for each other and we are taking care of each other. Armando: Amazing. I will put those links in the show notes as well so that if you're listening and you are interested in contact Paratus Group follow those links you'll be able to find the information there. Brian, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate you coming today. Thanks for having me. It's been a great conversation. Thanks. And for those of our listeners, if you haven't liked and subscribed to the show, please do so because that way you'll be the first to know whenever we have an excellent episode like this one with Colonel Brian Searcy today. Thanks everyone and we'll see you in the next one.