Left Of Greg 027 Boundaries People Teach You How They Want To Be Treated.

Alright, Greg, so we'll go ahead and get started. So today we are going to be discussing boundaries, right? So what we mean by boundaries is how people learn their boundaries, how they test them, how they push them, and how that works. Normal human behavior, and everyone understands what we mean by "normal" — meaning within a normal social setting for what's considered, in a clinical sense, abnormal. Not, "Hey, I don't like that clothing," or something like that, but something with a variety.

So, that's what we're going to be talking about today, and specifically, just trying to keep that. Boundaries are going to go into a number of different spirals, where we'll get back, but I think we'll start with it there. And today, we'll introduce a couple more "Remo-isms" or "Greg-isms," right? So, things that you've said that I've always taken with me, I've always remembered, that become very almost like any other sayings can become cliché. But there's a lot of meaning, there's so much meaning behind these that it's very simple. Like the one we use, obviously, the slogan for our company, "Training Changes Behavior." That's so simple, it's elegant.

Well, of course, I was explaining to some folks I talked to the other day, a major corporation looking at some of the issues they were having, and they were trying to change some of the culture and change some of the issues that they had going on. They were simply educating their employees, and they were realizing, "Look, we're doing all this, and nothing's happening." And I explained to them, "Well, there's a difference between training and education." And we did a whole podcast on that, I think that was our first one, so if you listen, you can always go back to that.

But one of the things, and I think it'd be good to segue into boundaries and what we're talking about, is one of the "Remo-isms" that you always say is, "People teach you how they want to be treated." And you teach everyone how you want to be treated, and they teach you how they want to be treated. Well, it seems simple, right? "People teach you how they want to be treated." What does that mean for folks that are listening? How would you tell me that?

Well, let's go back just a couple of pages in the book, Brian, if it's okay. (Laughs) It's what you do when I ask you a direct question, exactly, because that gives my old ass time to think.

But the idea of the four corners of the document here are, it's all about where you grew up, and your individuality that came from the tribes, the groups, the setting that built you. So, I learned early in our house because we were a very violent family. I'm not saying that we espoused those, but I'm saying that we certainly lived in a rough neighborhood in a rough part of town, and we were a family. So if you wanted food, you had to be fast. I know you notice from your Irish upbringing that you had brothers, and they were bigger than you, and a sister, so you had to be fast. The problem is that my brother is bigger than me, he's eight years older than me, so he knows some of the sneaky techniques, right?

So the idea, Brian, is that I learned to be the king of the sound bites. So whether I was on the street talking to friends, or whether I had to talk to my parents, I learned to try to limit what you were saying to these memorable, sticky ideas, and then you could retain them. And so that came from my old man, a former Marine, a Marine orator, Marine Raider, and honest to God, the meanest human being ever. My brother, Jeff Williams, and I were grieving over the death of a very good friend of ours, Ronnie "Raz" Juan (God rest his soul, getting all choked up just thinking about it), who died from a horrific gunshot accident when we were younger. And my dad walked in and said, "Okay, I'll give you 15 minutes to cry. Then, when you're done crying, we gotta get back to work because tears are a waste of water." And I was like, "Whoa!" So, literally, he did it at the end of his fist. So, you learn from those things. So what I said is, "Okay, how about we do those in a positive manner rather than scaring the hell out of everybody?"

But he's also the one that taught me early on, "Those who know, know." So, what happened is we had a wall at the dojo that we used to write up these life truths on. And then any time a "Greg-ism" came up that everybody liked, it would be, "Let your behavior, not your words, speak for you." And we had that as "Show me," or "Bite me." Let's call it "Weakness leaving the body," like you just said, "People teach you how they want to be treated." And these are all from the mindset of living and navigating the streets of Detroit or any big city back, like I said, in the days of the dojo.

"How do you determine MLKOA and MDKOA?" (Most Likely Course of Action and Most Dangerous Course of Action). "Why did the person cross the street? Is this car slowing down to ask directions? Or is it going to be early signs of a drive-by?" "Most people want their say, not their way, so you're not going to have to go kinetic in many instances, very few." And finally, something again that we have on the website, right up with "Training Changes Behavior," is that "Your safety is largely your responsibility." And the blood and sweat and tears that came from this, you can remember. Back in the day, I'm nobody now, but back in the day, I fought guys like Steve "Nasty" Anderson, Greg Delon, Mike. And I was our edged weapon and impact weapons instructor. Gosh, John Peters, Danny Inosanto, Dino Kane—I mean, I could go down the litany of guys. I actually got to spar Bill Wallace back in the day. So, a lot of what I got is from standing up to my old man and talking crap back to him, getting knocked on my ear, and then learning.

And so, what I'd like to say is that the theme for today is the boundaries that I learned way back then. And when I was a kid, I wrote this down: "First, I learn my boundaries, then I test my boundaries, and finally, I push my boundaries." And that came from the school of hard knocks. How do people learn? When people talk about that, "Yeah, I came from the streets," or "I was a street educator," or whatever else. I'd always watch TV, or I'd read a book, or I talked to somebody, and then get beat down by my dad for it. But that's how the process goes. First, I learned my boundaries. Now, I can learn those on my own. I can learn those from my team. I can learn those by getting punched in the mouth by Danny Munz when I was younger because he stole one of my G.I. Joes. But then testing the boundaries, meaning you're literally trying to see, "Okay, where's this force field? And when does the net go away from under my feet? When am I out there on my own?" And then I push my boundaries.

And what I wanted to talk about today, and why I'm glad you brought this up, is that those can be two different sides of the same coin, right? Used for good, or they can be used for evil. Sorry, in there is your answer. (Laughs) Yes, should you choose to go back in and edit through that? Okay, well, that's... they appreciate that. Welcome.

But I want to go back. I think we'll start it to where exactly you said, "First, I learned my boundaries, then I test my boundaries, then I push my boundaries." And that's, first of all, that's normal human development. That's you as a kid. So I remember as a kid, same thing, we all sat there when my mom was like, "Hey, Brian, Brian, Brian, Brian John Marren, get your butt over here!" Once I knew she used my full name, that taught me because I knew what was coming after that. Then there were going to be consequences. And so that's normal. We all have to learn our boundaries.

What you just said, what you just said, is the most amazing life truth in the world, and it bears repeating. Your mom taught you a left-handed way (write it on a dry-erase board), and with my dad, with both hands, and Uncle Paul. But the idea was that she taught you that, "Listen," you taught her too that you weren't coming at the first one. But she taught you that when she said your full name, the next thing was going to be a swat, or whatever. Okay, so why is that important? That's hugely important because you said the second part of that is that you have to have consequences. If there are no consequences for your actions, there's no structure.

Talk about building structure. The Great Barrier Reef wouldn't be around if all those little dead crustaceans and things didn't adhere to each other to create that. Well, it's more than a formula, it's a way of life. If you don't have structure, you're going to turn out to be a crappy person, a damaged human. If you don't have boundaries and you feel free to navigate in and out of those boundaries without consequence, you're going to be a bad human. I truly believe that, Brian.

Yes, knowing... I mean, I think you can... there are plenty of sociologists and scientists that would completely agree with that. But now you're looking at... and that's why there are different policies out there, there's different legislation. When it comes to kids and young criminals, it's like, "Hang on, let's not throw them into a system and then commit them to that life if they were never taught what those boundaries were; they never learned them." So you literally now can be a fully adult human being and not understand boundaries.

And I think that goes right into kind of what... I mean, we're going to talk about both sides of the coin, but when it comes to criminal behavior, predatory behavior, that's about those boundaries where they don't have that boundary. Most people, especially anyone listening to this right now, would go, "Well, I'm not going to do that, that's wrong," or "There's consequences for me doing that." They're less likely to do that. And now, I think a good way to describe that, and maybe, it would be that that's a continuum. So what I find acceptable is within my arm's length here. But if I fall on that continuum way, all the way outside already, well, I'm willing to accept behaviors that maybe you, Greg, aren't. And I think that's kind of where it comes down to what those boundaries are. And there are different... there are societal reasons, there are cultural norms, there are all kinds of things that go into what we are willing to accept in terms of someone else's behavior.

Yeah, yeah. There's a duplicitous standard here, and it's necessary, meaning boundaries are for you and boundaries are for society (or our culture, and all those other words). But I also want to take just a minute and make sure that our viewers and our listeners understand what it's not. For example, the normal human development of teenagers in a society is cataloged; you can look it up, there are so many scientific studies out there. But kids act up because they need to cut the umbilical cord, yes, and they need to fly, they need to go outside the nest, and that's absolutely essential. And so, I've had so many parents come up to us, and you remember, Brian, we'll be on the road teaching, and Shelley and I can't get the bathroom break because people come up and they'll be saying, "Hey, what's the number one question?" "Where was this training all my life? Where was it before my last employment?" Okay. It's always the number two question, "Is my spouse cheating on me?" Or "Am I lying?" Then the third question always comes up the same thing: "Why can't I control my [blank] aged child?" And the reason is that that's not about boundaries; that's about normal human emotional maturity where the kid has to act up and act out, so you throw them out of the nest and they go and thrive. Because 3,000 years ago, or 10,000 years ago, depending on what you're reading and who you believe, that was an imperative, it was a social right. You didn't do that; there was no furtherance of society.

So when it comes to boundaries, as a kid, Brian, your mom was teaching you those boundaries not to be mean to you, but she had to allow you to understand that boundaries were about who you are. Boundaries were about how you were going to relate to other people the rest of your life. You ever have those people come up to you and go, "Hey man, that guy got a divorce," or "That female got a divorce," or whatever significant other situation you're in, and they went and married the same person next? Why? Okay, homophily, of course, attitudinal homophily. We know birds of a feather flock together, but it's more than that. It's that we tend not to enforce our boundaries in certain relationships: the people we love, right, or our children. And that's where things can take a dramatic turn. If we don't have consequences for our boundaries, society, family, kids, schools start to break down, they start to erode, and then we're not living that legal, moral, and ethical lifestyle anymore.

Right. And you bring up legal, moral, and ethical; that's good because it's kind of actually where our laws come from, right? And they come from the development of civilizations over thousands and thousands of years of what becomes social norms. And then if you become strong enough, we say, "We need to pass a law to then make sure that this is written down and it's clear." Exactly. So that's all, from a, I guess, historical perspective, how it comes into this. But I guess to get kind of some specifics, so we kind of talk about criminal and predatory behavior, and about, I guess, what you'd call a boundary violator. So, how do we deal with boundary violators? What does that look like? Or what is that person going to do and how do you deal with that?

Great, great question. And let's talk about the essence of HBP RNA (Human Behavior Pattern Recognition and Analysis). So the idea is, I would counter to your question: Why do we need to identify those folks? In a relationship, "no" means "no." In any type of situation, self-worth and self-esteem are your best defense against the elements, against society, against... if we were going to talk about self-defense, Brian, the first thing is, "Physician, heal thyself." You have to be really strong, and to do that, you have to create boundaries. "Listen, I will not drink and drive. I will not hit or molest in any manner my children, or my significant other, or a date." Don't you write down, on yellow paper if you have to, "These are the things I will do and these are the things that I want to. I will not engage in any conduct that is illegal, immoral, unethical."

Right. Right. Those become those life rules.

And what happens is the bad guy (remember the other side of that coin, the obverse) is that they didn't have that structure, and they didn't have those boundaries laid out for them. They didn't understand that escalation. Therefore, you had two types of things that diverged into the woods. One, you had a person that went into a gang. And right now, if a gangbanger is listening while they're like on a treadmill or something like that, the idea is, if you're a gangbanger, the thing that you were seeking out was structure, organization, yes. And you wanted consequences you never got when you were a kid. So you see that gang structure as somebody yelling at you. And so you create a false self-worth, right? Saying, "I belong to a group." Now, we both know the Marine Corps and others are gangs, my mother is a gang. Yes.

And so now what you had is, you have a person that's got a tremendous amount of structure that lives their life ethically and says, "I want to go in here and be a part of this team or this team." Or you have another person that says, "I didn't have very much structure, and I got knocked around a lot. I don't want to get knocked around anymore, so I'm going to surround myself with this gang." The idea is, first, I learned my boundaries. I have to understand what those boundaries are, okay? Then I have to test them to see how strong the ice is. And what happens is, every once in a while, I'm going to push those boundaries, why? To learn that there are consequences. And that's the key step that malevolent people, bad people, bullies, forgot about. You get what I'm trying to say, Brian, is they push the envelope and they liked it. They liked seeing that person cower in fear. They liked hearing that person cry. You get what I'm trying to say? Or start negotiating.

"Look, would you change your ethics or your moral compass or your legal opinion because you're on vacation?" I mean, do you believe in stuff where people say, "Oh, well, you know what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," or "It doesn't..."

I actually... I actually have proof of that with that marriage. It didn't last that long, but it definitely came back from Vegas.

Okay, well, that's called an STD, Brian. All your life, just remember that. Sorry, Michaela. No, no, but seriously, Brian, let's take that. What you just said is that there were consequences from activities that occurred, right? Right. Did they surprise you?

Well, I mean, they're not... you don't ever... they're not thinking of the consequences if you haven't been taught, "Okay, wait, wait, wait a minute, but you know there are consequences."

Oh, yes, that's what I'm trying to say, right? I'm trying to say they perpetuate, they exist. And that's where we get intent from, Brian. We get intent from a person that knowingly, arbitrarily, capriciously enters into a behavior that they know is wrong, right, legally, morally, and ethically. Yet they think, "Wow, I'm not going to get caught." See, if I walked by a car and the window was down on a car and there was a briefcase that was sitting there and I could see a laptop and an iPad, never in a million years. Yeah, I can reach in. As a matter of fact, if you're Shelley (our CEO, Shelley), she would post a sentry right until she found the person who found the person, and roll up the window, or admonish them for leaving the stuff. You know Shelly, she's got that cyber, she's got that character. So that's what we want to instill in our kids. But there has to be a handoff, right? There has to be a time and boundaries that you set with how people treat you. Like a John Wayne in The Shootist, great film. John Wayne says, "I won't be talked down to. I won't be laid a hand upon." Right. Those become imperatives for personal boundaries. With personal boundaries, I get personal growth. With personal boundaries, I gain self-worth and I gain self-esteem.

What do you think? Right? Those situations where people with low self-esteem end up becoming sexually abused because predators can smell, feel, and taste them. Or a person feels like suicide is the only option, "I am not understood, I have no self-worth."

Right. So you brought up a couple of great points I want to just kind of hit on. And one, your analogy of, "Hey, you know, Marine Corps, Army, law enforcement, your poker night with the guys, or brunch with the girls, that's a type of gang." Right. So, obviously, difference between Marine Corps and, you know, Gangster Disciples is, you know, Marine Corps is honor, courage, commitment; Gangster Disciples is murder, death, kill. So, different, but they have honor amongst themselves.

Yes. Okay.

So, it can be misplaced, and understood because we're looking outside into that group from the inside out. But your... and the reason I bring that up too is because then it's, "Okay, so the next time someone is looking at these situations or gangs or crowd behavior or different groups and how could they do this, understand it through the lens of what you already know." You know gang activity, you've done that.

And so, you brought up another one too I'd like to hit on it briefly: when you said, "Hey, I walk past and I see a suitcase and laptop and an open window, all that stuff. No, I'm not going to take that because that's wrong. I know that's wrong. And one, I wouldn't want any of that to ever happen to me." But there, and it's illegal, immoral, and unethical. But that's a great point because then there are a lot of issues where crowd behavior takes over and there's different mentality, and there is research to show that, "Okay, you may act differently in those situations." You know, we (I know you did the lessons learned on one; you guys can check out the website) about the observer bystander effect, all that kind of stuff. But there's also a lot of people and researchers who will say, "You know, I don't really know if that's that that that meets it because maybe, you know, maybe these people have just never been in that situation before where they can get away with something and didn't get caught."

Meaning me again, with it's the individual, not...

So you're saying the trial by fire occurs when that person sees that, yes, maybe you can tell about their temperament, or maybe they'll learn from that situation. My thing is, if you're that slow into learning in your emotional maturity that you don't understand good and evil, right? Right on. Then we've had a collapse somewhere, and that collapse has led to you being a street urchin that's coming out with a gun or doing something stupid. Okay. Those values, whether you get them from church, whether you get them from your parents or your extended family, whether you get them from your gang, your set, your tribe, your group, those are invaluable because they create a structure, a basis for how you live the rest of your life.

Two things on that: one, we both know (I can't remember the second, third time, whatever) in Afghanistan, it was the Australian general that came out and he had those little PSAs, public service announcements, in like the briefings and stuff. And one was, "The behavior you walk by is the behavior you accept." Do you remember? And do... there's a general wherever you are, come up for air and tell us what that exact quote was, but that's damn close enough that if you don't create a consequence or call somebody on it, then you accept the behavior. What do you think you're going to do next time, Brian? You said it. You know what? Your mom's gonna keep yelling, "Yeah, and Brian, Brian, Brian, Richard Marren, you bastard!" What I just wrote down there is "Marinate." I thought that... I'll let something marinate. Yeah, never heard that before.

By the way, I came up with that one too.

So the idea about the Australian general, I want to add one more to that, based on exactly your idea of how we learn things. We're in a casino in a place, and we lost a lot of money. Shelley didn't, I did, because I am the village idiot thinking I can outthink the slot machine. Right. Okay. If I lost 25 cents, I'm gonna bet $1. Greg's math skills are legendary, and so I'm stinging from losing a couple hundred bucks. So I linked up with Shelley (Mrs. Galifianakis—there's a message for you, which means I'm broke, meet me at the car). Right. Yeah.

As we're walking out of the casino to the parking garage, and you know, Shelley's the best human behavior profiler in the world, and she's very alert. She stops and I see her and all of a sudden she gets the mission focus, and she walks over and she picks up a wedding ring. And Marren, I gotta tell you, this was a rock. This son had more carrots than Bugs Bunny. Right. And so she immediately shows it to me, and you know me, so I go through the fantasy. And Shelley immediately goes over to security, to the security desk, because she obviously checked out the place beforehand, and says, "I found this by this machine," gives a machine number and everything else, "Here's my ID card. If you need to contact me or make a police report or something like that, have a good day." And there was no margin for error. Now, I know Shelley, where she grew up. I've known Shelley for 35 years, and I've seen her in all situations. Her moral compass, her turpitude, never needs an adjustment. Right. But some people, like me, I do need an adjustment once in a while. And that's why there are consequences.

You said you need an adjustment, right? Whether it was you or your wife, it straightened, and it led to something that occurred in Vegas.

STD. But the idea is that whatever that was, that herpes, whatever that was, at that time, you have to take a look at your life. How did your life turn out from that? Take a look at what you've done. I mean, own your exes are a way back. I guess that would be a thing from the better.

That was it. It was a reference to my first marriage that we got married in Vegas. But that didn't obviously work out for a number of reasons. But that's when I realized, "No, what happens in Vegas does not stay there."

Right. Stay there at all.

It does. It does. So, I on this... alright, so we kind of talked about boundaries. And and that this is then understanding what we just talked about; this is then how I interact in my world, in my environment. So you give the example from one side of the coin of Shelley. Well, Shelley obviously has those. She has her boundaries. She's been taught. You can tell by those actions. So, what does it look like then if I'm someone who, I'm a boundary violator, right? Or I don't... I don't stay... I don't have the same boundaries that the rest of society does, or a normal behavior. And again, that normal is just what's generally accepted.

Great question, great question. But I think what you're asking there, and I want to make sure that this is what I'm asking: we all encounter unique little snowflakes every day. Yeah. A unique little snowflake. The person that wants their say and not necessarily their way. Or a person that has a mode of dress or adorning themselves or acting in public that you might not agree with, doesn't mean that that person's immoral, illegal, or unethical, right? Right. What the difference is, is where you had a clear violation of a societal or a personal boundary, and it's a repeat. Okay. And some can be so bad, they don't need to repeat. You get what I'm trying to say? But there's very little in your life that you can't undo. There's very few times that you can't unring that bell.

So for somebody watching, if you're feeling like you're being taken advantage of, you need to get out of the relationship, go get help, get support, get a cop. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Flee. If you think that you're not being listened to, and your self-esteem is rock bottom, and you feel as though you're going to hurt yourself or kill yourself, you gotta go get help. Don't wait, let this be the catalyst to do that.

But if you observe or you are the person that's always on the fringe and you've got this flexible sense of right and wrong, you decide today, listen. You know, the other day, the Queen, Shelley again, we're coming out of City Market. And I've never seen her do this in her entire life, but we had another place to go. So, you know how like when you're doing your cards and stuff... I don't do anything. I don't even know if we have a bank account, I'm assuming we do, or a credit card, I don't carry any of that stuff. I've been witness to this, you know this is true. No. But a dude handed Shelley some money at 6:00 a.m. at City Market in a little beautiful Gunnison, Colorado. And Shelley stopped again, and I see this look, and I know something's coming. And she turns around and she walks back in, hands a guy a ten, and she said, "He gave me too much money."

Okay. If you're the person that said, "A tie goes to the runner, bad luck for him," okay? You may be either approaching that baseline for apparent or abnormal behavior or deviant behavior, and you gotta rein it in. And you're saying, "Well, who hurts?" If a person doesn't know, if I don't stop for the stop sign... those platitudes are there to make you sleep at night. If you're having those questions and you're having a problem with right and wrong, good and evil, let me give you a copper example. So we're on a B&E (breaking and entering), and I came over because the guy was doing these floor safes like at the pizza joints. There in Detroit, Little Caesars, or Hungry Howie's, whatever the pizza joint is by you, usually they'll have a floor safe behind the counter that's where they drop the money so the next shift has enough. And this, and this is why the gangbangers are listening, by the way, if you turn it three clicks away, this guy, this crew, was going up on the roof or going into the place next door. I won't tell you how they were defeating the alarm. But a copper listening right now is going, "I know that." And they were taking out the floor safe, which is a hard-ass thing to do, let's get... they can't want money in it. Right.

Though as we were in there, this copper walks by, and this copper is eating the pizza cheese. And he's got a pocket full of like, the chick was a little bite still, about like, you get what I'm trying to say? And he's eating that stuff, and I look at him and I go, "Hey, what are you up to?" And he goes, "Just eating and waiting for the owner." "Are you gonna pay for that stuff when he gets here? You know, they're gonna throw this stuff away, it's closed." "No, that's not what I asked you. I asked you, 'Did you...'" Hey, if you've ever walked in a place and you got an extra stick of gum or a package, or anything else, and you walked out without paying, you were wrong. And you still have a chance to redeem yourself. And you're saying, "That's petty." Listen, if you're gonna let me ask a pack of smokes, you'll look past a briefcase holding an iPad, or you'll look past money, or you'll look the other way when somebody's doing human trafficking. You're saying you won't, but I'll tell you, once you get on that slippery slope, it's virtually impossible to regain your footing.

Yeah, I know. And that's, I think the slippery slope part is, is a good... is a good, you know, that's another one of those sayings like, "Hey, you know, if you go a little bit, once you get a little bit..." Well, now, especially if I've gotten you to come along with me and go along with something that I have going on, and you're gonna look the other way. Well, now I know, "Hey, man, like I can do whatever I want in front of you." And the other part is too, is now I know you're now kind of complicit in whatever I do. If you're...

Precisely. If you knew about it and you chose to do it. Now, people will say, "Hey, listen, why did I use a white lie?" "I used the white lie because I didn't want the consequences, I didn't want to get caught in that situation." Well, what's the difference between a homicide? Do you get what I'm trying to say? Now, I'm not saying that, "Hey, you look really nice in that," or "In today, Brian." Yes. I'm not talking about something that there's no intent behind it, right? And again, it's just a platitude, it's just some colloquial expression that people do. But I'm talking about looking the other way, or saying, we had a copper that said, "Hey, listen, I'm cheating on my old lady." Came from a Department of Taxes, went to another department. I'm not gonna say which department or where. But he comes up to me, and at that time, Shelley and I were doing some IG and Internal Affairs stuff, and a guy comes up to me and he says, "Hey, you gotta tell everybody that I was on this raid with you tonight." I'm talking about me. And he's gone, "Because I'm cheating. Oh, yeah. I wasn't home, and she's at the airport, and she's headed for the house, and I'm never gonna make it back in time." And I'm like, "Look, dude, that's not me. You got the right..."

I can look the other way. I'm not gonna say. Similar, similar situation to where someone did, "Hey, man, like if anyone asks, or my girl asks, I was here." And I, before they could get the words... I already knew what was going, before they could get the words out of their mouth. Absolutely not. Whatever you're doing is your business, I get it, alright? Don't make it mine, because the second you make it mine, now I'm involved. And it was just... it was very clear, like, "I will not lie for you."

I am not wearing pants right now. You would... you well know. So I would love to stand up and show you my skinned knees. I don't want any of the viewers, I don't want any of the listeners taking, "We're some holier-than-thou people." No, I make mistakes. I make mistakes every day of my life. But in the accounting, in the reckoning, I will stand up and say, "Mea culpa, I did that," or I will try to be better than next. On the difference between the sociopath, the difference between the Machiavellian, and the difference between the narcissistic bad psychopathy, is they won't. And as a matter of fact, they'll write that down and say, "What an advantage I gained." HBP. Right.

And and that's a good point because, of course, you have to mention the white lie. You know, "Hey, you know, baby, do I look like I gained weight after..." You only answer that question for me, it's gonna be no.

So live with Shelley, because Shelley will walk by me and go, "Fatty." Okay. "Goodnight." And you know, "Salad night." You get what I'm trying to say? Yeah. Not me. And she doesn't have a mean bone in her body, but I made the mistake of asking the question, "Do these pants make you look fat?" And Shelley answered, "No, the extra 120 pounds you gained, Greg, is what makes you look fat, you bastard." So, yes, the brutal honesty always works. So that's what makes me... she reminds me of my father.

Yeah, of course. Of course. She's probably tougher than your father, too.

A hue of truth and justice is what she wears every day. So you brought up and you tied it back to intent, right? So this is where this comes into a lot of the behavior what we're talking about, and determining the most likely, most dangerous course of action, right? We always say you gotta take into context and look at what the intent is here. So your product like, some people are just, you know, we've all seen the guy talking real loud on the cell phone when you're inside the train car or inside the airplane, or some inappropriate situation that doesn't mean they're, once again, doing anything, just a jackass.

Yeah. Exactly.

They're just being an ass. And and that's just, you know, and a lot of times, we've all been that ass before, maybe, and not realized it. And gone, "Oh, crap, like I'm really bothering everyone." And you might be going too far to step up and say something.

It's different on a plane where you violate your safety than it is in society where it's just annoying. Do you get what I'm trying to say? You gotta be careful because you can get punched in the nose. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Oh yeah. Something inappropriate.

Now, Brian, let's let's let's put it the other end of the spectrum, because you set up "white lie" and that example you did was like a quarter. Yeah. Let's end it here's halfway, let's go over here for a second and balance that with Bianchi and Buono, the two guys that were the Hillside Stranglers. Right? They didn't know what they wanted. Okay. But they knew they wanted sex, and they knew that they didn't want to get caught because they had been caught early on, so what they wanted to do (meaning identified and almost apprehended). So what they said is, "We've learned something from this near apprehension." And their first people that they started picking to disenfranchise, rape, and kill were prostitutes. So then the prostitutes started catching on going, "You guys aren't cops," which was unacceptable because then the next stage is fighting back or turning in, which they didn't want.

So, "First, I learned my boundaries." My boundaries are, "I want to murder, death, kill. I want to rape, I want to do this, but I don't want to get caught." Right? So then I test my boundaries. I go out, we flip a fake badge or a wallet or just act a certain manner, and the prostitutes got in a car, "Hey, we're arrested." Well, then after a while, that ended. So what happened is then I have to push my boundaries. I still don't want to get my rocks off. I still want to do the rapes and the murders, but now this crew, set, tribe, gang that I was choosing from, won't allow me in anymore. So now what I gotta do is bounce around.

So if you want to decide what the next thing that's gonna happen, an explanatory storyline, you need to know where that continuum is. Are the people learning their behavior, are they testing it, or are they pushing it? So Bianchi and Buono were testing it when they went and got a little girl out of a suburb. They were testing it when they did brutal sexual murder mutilations. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Yeah. To find what their boundaries were, what do we like? And the coppers missed that.

So, let's jump fast forward, because you know the ending of that story. And if you don't do your damn homework, let's talk about what's the guy I'm going to Disneyland, pentagram, last week on it. Yeah, you know I'm talking about, he's the Zodiac one, or your time now, the other kid, the kid that got caught from the bus stop, Richard Ramirez. The Night Stalker. So, apologize to folks that are watching, know that this is live, we don't have any kind of magic people yelling to us in the ear here.

But Ramirez, right? Everybody goes at Ramirez, they said, "Oh, this was the catalyst that pushed his investigation." Okay. Ramirez liked getting high. Okay. Ramirez liked breaking into places. So you get high again. He learned that if he has a stolen car, if he gets caught in a stolen car, he goes to the stir (jail). And he didn't like going to jail. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Didn't like that. So he avoided that. So that's part of his boundary on the other side of the coin. But guess what? He also found out that people identified him. So where did he start doing? He had a captive audience in the house. He knew he was gonna kill them anyway, and he was high, and sometimes he had sex with the people. You gotta understand, don't write what's not there. Don't put that round peg in a square hole. Don't rush to an unreasonable conclusion. The idea is this is yet another lens that I can use this as a spectrum, I can use this as advanced critical thinking, I can use this to look in the mirror like you're always telling people to decide, "How am I projecting?"

Well, that's right. That's, that's a good point. I think to bring up a couple of things. One, I mean, yeah, you talk about, so remember to everyone out there, unless you're a... you know, people like to make opinions on, "Oh, this guy's a psychopath," or "This guy's a narcissist," or "There's this." And it's like, okay, unless you are, like, and my first question then is, "You know, are you a clinical psychologist that's evaluated that person?" "Well, no." "Oh, okay. So let's then, let's not jump to conclusions," because a lot of people say, "Oh, this guy's a psychopath," where they may just lack empathy or whatever. I mean, there's... there's... you guys can do the research on it.

Yeah. Exactly.

But what a good way to start, which I always say, with this skill set, with the HBP RNA, it's not just about reading other people, you gotta start with yourself. And that's why I always teach, anytime when we go into the about kinesics and body language and all that stuff. So you start becoming aware, look at yourself in the mirror, of your body language, your kinesics, what you're putting out there. That's one, it's gonna get you better at reading other people, but it's also gonna get you to understand your impact on your environment. So that brings you back to which I know the one you love, my Taylor Swift analogy. I love it.

Absolutely.

The Taylor Swift one is, is (and for listeners out there who are T-Swift fans, huge fan of her, she's amazing artist, she actually writes a lot of her own music and has her whole life, so she's like a legitimate artist, she's not just one of these, you know, kind of pop stars that they put stuff in front of her). But anyway, what's, you know, you look at her pattern, her behavior: she has a high-profile relationship, gets into a breakup, writes a song about how that guy's an ass, and that song makes a ton of money. Right. Happens again, makes a ton of money. Then it's, "Oh, this girl is talking crap about me." Right. Support, you know, sympathetic song about it, and then makes a ton of money. Okay. So that's, that's the pattern of behavior we're seeing here, right? So, every time this happens, she's rewarded with with huge, huge, huge hits, right? So, the whole point of it is, is, you know, I call a lot of people Taylor Swift fans because the whole thing is she's probably never gonna write a song called, "Maybe I'm the Problem." Right.

And that's, and that's so just a lot of people, and I've had to learn that. And the reason why I get to say this is because, trust me, yeah, there's, there's been like you talk about skinned knees, skinned elbows, skinned face, skinned ego, skinned everything. I just continue to learn. You know, I'm in my mid-thirties now, and it's gonna be every process, even with my wife, Michaela, will start talking about stuff, and we are what it's like when we teach and emotional when we get going. And I'm not angry or anything, but she's got like, "You gotta stop with this. You get this Chicago attitude." You know, the next thing I know, "You're coming in, boom, boom, boom, boom." And I'm like, "Oh, baby, I'm just, I'm just talking." She's like, "No, I know that what you're thinking, but this is what's going out there." So this is a constant, you know, this is a personal development, like this is constant throughout your life, or it should absolutely be. So it's that skinning that needs an understanding. But that's her then setting up that boundary, like, "Look, you will not talk to me with that tone of voice," where I'm not upset at all. I just have to reel it back in and go, "Alright, this is what's going on."

So, Marren, what you just described in a very... I want to tie your laser-focused message to a broader sense. Remember, earlier we said Code of Hammurabi, name all different codes. Okay, we go down and we could talk about the Bushido Code in Japan, right? About any place, in the warrior's code, there's all... they do, in a legal basis, in none of them is homicide (killing another person) legal, in none of them. Okay. Right. And then somebody's gonna call me later and go, "You lying bastard, cannibal village outside of, you know, Mazatlán, or whatever." Yeah. Okay. But when it comes to that, they weren't killing a person for a homicide, they were killing a person for nutrition. You know, "Eat the brain of the enemy," all that other stuff. What I'm trying to say is there are certain life rules: you don't molest your children, you take care of them, you don't kill your neighbor or rape your neighbor. You cherish the fact that they're gonna watch your house when you're out. Just like we said a couple of broadcasts back about, "Have you ever written a manifesto?" Okay. If you see you looking at your neighbor and going, "Damn, I would look good in that house, I think I'll murder them." Houston, it's you, you get what I'm trying to say? You're the problem.

And I know that we're trying to make light of that just to make it more interesting, but that's seriously what this is, Brian. If you're a parent, expect your kids to learn their boundaries. Also, they're gonna test them. That's why you have to have consequences built-in upfront. And don't hide the flipping consequences. Tell the other human, "Listen, I fully expect you to be a legal, moral, and ethical human. I fully expect you not to rape me on this date. I fully expect that you're gonna take care of my car and bring it back fueled up," or pay, you know. If you go to a restaurant and you know you're drinking and then the other person doesn't drink and you're gonna split up the check, you ever been in that thing? You know what I'm saying, Brian? "Hold on." And all of a sudden you're sitting there saying, "Yes, you did."

But take responsibility for your actions. And the idea is, by following codes that already exist—familial codes, societal codes, cultural codes, whatever else—that makes it easier. Second of all, if you want a guide, there are many people that you can look at in your life or through history books or movies or self-help stuff or the local chaplain, priest, politician—I don't... right now, everybody's gonna do, "Oh, it doesn't matter." Look, if you don't have a dad, ask somebody else's dad. It's you. If you need a code to live by, there are plenty of good ones that are out there. But they'll all follow these same basic tenets, these same basic rules. Code of Bushido is no different than Lao Tzu. Do you get what I'm trying to say? When we're talking about Lao Tzu, it's no different than The Tao of Pooh or The Tao of Piglet. Right. Great writers follow those things and say, "This is a Gichin Funakoshi, my way of life, a Karate-Do." All those things have a code, an ethical code. And you know when you breach them.

Easy to follow. Yeah, it could be old Disney movies, or ones. It's all the same, it's the same storyline. Those are those are basically, you know, T.S. Eliot. I mean, you can go right down.

Yeah. Okay.

In novels, right? The themes that have been around, whether it's, you know, theological or philosophical or cultural, they're held at the same themes. Those things, right, you know, absolutely. There is a reason they're there, because it it's a kind of, it governs human behavior. Humans have known about human behavior for a long time, and what people are gonna do, and the best way to to, you know, make your way in the world. It's all been read. It's why I love... well, I think it's funny when all these different books come out about, you know, the self-help or how to realize this. Yeah, just like, "I learned this." Like, you know, I read one paragraph and I'm like, "Well, this is... I was taught this in... I had to go to Catholic school on the south side of Chicago for years. Like, I've learned all these themes already. Like, this is, there's a whole lot of other things are there that was that we don't need if we don't have a long enough podcast to go into those and discuss waterboarding at the..." Exactly. So so, but but those have all been there. And and so so that being said, if those have all been there and how to live the good life and how to model, then all the criminal behavior has already been there and has happened before, and there's nothing new in the world.

There is nothing new. That's the thing.

So it might be a new method, right? They may have a new method in which they kill you, whether that's like a newer gun or bomb that wasn't around 50 years ago, but but that that gun or bomb was there 50 years ago, it's just a different type. It's so so the behavior, which is why we don't... I think people confuse sometimes why we don't go into some of the details about that stuff. "Well, you know, you get the guys writing about stuff, 'Well, he used a, you know, Mannlicher-Carcano rifle with this caliber.'" Like, "Look, dude, it was a gun. It was a detail, it's a needless detail that gets in the way."

So that being said, I guess for what, what does that mean for for using Human Behavior Pattern Recognition and Analysis, and how to, you know, (I hate using the term, we don't use it) profile a person or an event or a situation? And what do I need to look for if it's, "Oh, this guy's a boundary violator," or "This guy's..." So we talked about boundary violations and what those guys will look like.

I think one of the things is you've got to decide how to model your behavior and how to fix the behavior of the others. And what I mean by that is like, as a field training officer training coppers on the road, if you had the question or saw a behavior that was questionable, I would always ask that person, "Okay, what if your mom was here? What would your dad say about what you just did or said to them? Or if you were meeting my mom, how would you expect her to be treated?" So much so that's been around for so long. It's not me that invented that. You know that there's a commercial now on television about the mother standard of care: "How would you want your mom treated when she went in for a cancer assessment or whatever?" The idea is if we all know that that's the behavior, then you need to carve out your boundaries because boundaries are about you when you're an adult and about how your family models when you're a kid. That's when they can go dangerously wrong.

But as an adult, if you have boundaries, they that define self-worth, define your self-esteem, you have to decide when it's time to fish or cut bait. If you're dealing with a group at work, or you're dealing with a group at home, or you're dealing with a spouse or a significant other, and those persons don't think that your boundaries are worth respecting, then you either are going to lose your self-respect and be miserable and cry yourself to sleep on your immense pillow, or you're going to have to fight with that person every day of your life to bring them... You see what I'm talking about?

Yes, of course.

So you have to make the decision. You personally have to make the decision. "I'm staying in this," "I'm modifying this behavior," "I'm reporting this behavior," or "I'm walking." And you know what? Sometimes voting with your feet is okay in that situation.

But that, and that goes right back into, you know, if the title of today's podcast is "Boundaries," right? It would be then, "People teach you how they want to be treated." Right? Because what you're talking about is then you're that person, that individual in the situation you described, is you're teaching others how you want to be treated, which goes directly into what people call target hardening, right? Not being a... so true, not being a predictive of a crime. It's simply you're teaching the world how you want to be treated. So if you're walking around staring at your phone and you're not situationally aware (another term which gets overused), but if you're not looking around and you look like a victim, you're gonna get treated like a victim. If you look like an opponent, that criminal is gonna take one look and go, "Nope, I'll find someone else." So, you may not, you know, you're not gonna try...

But where's the driver, Brian? What's the driver do? Drivers drive. A driver that drives, and that way if I've got my face down and I'm on the cell phone looking at directions and you're driving, that means we got to have a third guy in the back seat for the Afghanistan. That guy's looking for easy. You know, that's that's a security. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Looking like a bulldog staring out the window to make sure that nobody's on us. And if you can't handle those things on your own, then you don't get into that situation. You will become a victim if you're overwhelmed by events, and that's where you disregard those boundaries. You don't acquiesce that they actually exist, and you cross into the wrong landscape baseline situation without knowing it. And that's where situational awareness comes from. Situational awareness is that you predict likely eventualities and you say, "These probably won't kill me, so I'm gonna do them. These are likely to kill me, so I'm gonna avoid them." That's the simplest way of looking at it.

No, and that's why I kind of, kind of wanted to bring that back and tie that back in together, you know, or tie that, excuse me, back into that target hardening. And exactly what we're talking about is, you know, don't be, don't be a contributing factor to your own homicide or to your own crime.

Okay, throw one more on there, Brian. If you let your car run to warm it up in the morning, could that car become stolen? Yeah, that's the least of our worries. It's a stolen car, it's a property crime. But if the guy goes out and uses that in a homicide, do you get what I'm trying to say? Or uses that in a robbery or burglary or kidnapping or something else like that, think of those things. So you've got to spiral out from just a baseline to the MLKOA (Most Likely Course of Action). What then explanatory storylines? And if any of those intersect in this 360 with the MDKOA (Most Dangerous Course of Action) and you were the cause of it, how are you gonna feel the rest of your life? So you got to nip that in the bud, Barney Fife. You got to go backwards and say, "How does this fall into this baseline? Where does my behavior and my understanding of boundaries affect you?" And if the person that you're with isn't exhibiting it, dial 911 or get help or get out of the situation.

And if, let's say, you're in a school and you see that behavior, yeah, and it manifests itself in a specific way, let's say bullying, or let's say a classic Shelley walking up the street with me in a situation. And this young girl had gained weight since we had last seen her. She was wearing nothing but sweatpants and sweatshirt, and her clothing was filthy, and she was filthy. And Shelley looked at me before we even walked up and said, "You know, she's being sexually abused." And Shelley walks up and we said, "Hey, how's school?" And she goes, "Man, I love school. It's amazing. I can't get enough of school." And Shelley looked at me and said, "She's being abused at home." All of that from the profile that was given. And now that gives us a baseline with which to investigate. You don't draw conclusions that quickly. What you do, if you've been around long enough, yeah, you're gonna say that those artifacts and evidence start to form a reasonable conclusion, and now it allows you to place a filter. So flip-flopping and saying that we're not looking for sexual abuse. Now we were working at a kiosk selling airplane tickets, right? And now I want to turn that into customer satisfaction. Everything is right here, Brian. Human behavior teaches us how to treat other people and emotionally manipulate them for the better. Okay. And guess what? To find a bad guy, look at somebody that's emotionally abusive or emotionally manipulative.

Right. Negative results. Right. Yeah. No, and then that's where you're getting to, we know we always say the Most Likely, Most Dangerous Course of Action. That's a great way if you find, if you've observed that person who does not accept boundaries, no matter what. Okay. That is someone who that's going to carry over into other areas of their life, every aspect of their life. If they refuse to, you know, accept basic boundaries of behavior. Right. You know, some people, "Hey, it says, you know, don't park here," or, "Hey, they park in the handicap spot," right, even though they're not. Like that. Yeah. They that person might not be hacking up bodies when they come home from work, but they do not accept those boundaries. And and so that's going to that's going to happen in other areas of their life. So, so don't jump to the point where they're a criminal, terrorist, insurgent.

But that's like an unreasonable conclusion. Right. But the idea is, there's still some that you want to either keep an eye on you or get out of your life. Or we're going to modify their behavior. How do you modify somebody else's behavior? You tell them, "There's consequences for your actions." You know, "Ambushed at 1800" is a chapter in my book. Do you get what I'm trying to say? And to keep that job, you had to shut up and say, "Yes, dear," and get that ambushed and work all weekend long for their project that had to be on on Sunday so they could present it on Monday. And it was a control thing. That person was just being controlling to show, "Look, I made you dance, you marionette." And you know what? If you put up with it, which sometimes we put up with things, right? Like because we want to further our career, we want to make more money or something, but then it's on you, isn't it? Is it? Yeah. You made a decision.

So. So. But you know, can you modify it? Yes. If you can't, then you have to make a choice, "I'm leaving," or "I'm staying." Should I stay or should I go?

Now. And and and that's that's I think a great point to kind of kind of wrap everything together or tie it in on us. Is that now it becomes if you recognize those behaviors and accept them, you now have some responsibility for this, right? So now maybe, like you just said, that's a situation where you got a... We've all seen the movie Horrible Bosses. Some of you've experienced horrible bosses, people they can work for. They're like, "This is a horrible person," but you've accepted that because there's a greater thing here in mind, or you have some other strategy or plan in place where you go, "Well, I know I just have to put up with this until..." But if you don't have that, now you just have to accept some of that responsibility and then, and then that'll get and we're not kind of accepting illegalities.

Now we're saying damaged humans, yes, showing their sociopathy and their psychopathy at work. Do you get what I'm trying to say? And and that's very different than somebody saying, "Don't say anything if I touch you in your swimsuit area." So we're not saying that at all. We're saying that's always wrong. That's always full stop.

That's a great point, which is one of the first things you say to me any hotel we check into. So. So. But but but that there's long road trips, Brian. So so so that that kind of brings us to, you know, I kind of with the bathing suit comment there, I forgot where we're at. But no, it was...

Oh, you gotta listen, don't you have to remind your kids? Don't you have to remind the people? "Hey, listen, my dad used to do it all the time. He used to walk up to us and say, 'You're outside where people can see you. Be somebody.'" And we knew what that meant. We knew that that that big boots of truth and justice were coming, right? Or he was gonna yank you if you stepped on a line. So when you tell your kid a bathing suit area when you're at the hotel, you're telling, "Make sure you don't get out of line. Don't find yourself in that situation coming up from the pool and the elevator with a bunch of people you don't know in unfamiliar territory." That's what you're trying to say.

You know, you again, we have this gallows humor only based on the fact that we always get to see the worst side of life. Yeah. Just all those people out there, we have to fix those horrible experiences. PTSD, traumatic brain injuries lead you to that. This is how things are, it's a struggle every day, boy. Everybody, that's that's why we have to laugh about it, because otherwise, you know, we'd be another statistic. But but that's that's the, and when you're dealing with these people and you're talking about boundaries and you think you've identified it, you know, you try to treat it with with what you can based on what the relationship is. I still have to deal with folks like this, and it's just, it's always, it's going to be for a while, and that's just, I don't have an option out of that. So I try to use that empathy, or just, you know, that hurt people hurt people, right? So people that also inside are gonna, they're gonna attack you and you're the problem and you're it. And so as long as you establish those boundaries, if it's very clear on what is and isn't acceptable behavior, you're teaching them how you want to be treated. And and you do that every Saturday.

Real quick this morning in Denver, on the news, there was a female that thought she was getting shafted by the people that were working on her car. So instead of going to that person and saying, "I'm gonna sue," or "Go get a lawyer," or do something else, she went and reported her car stolen. Why? Low level of emotional security there. Second thing is false reporting. There's so many things wrong, yeah, that we won't go into that. But what I'm trying to say is the antithesis of that. What I'm trying to say is if you've identified these and if you think that you're with an offender, you gotta do something about this. This would be the perfect place for one of those, "If you see something, say something." If you're a student, say something to your teacher. If the teacher won't listen, say something to the principal, assistant principal, counselor, or nurse, a bunch of people at school. If you see it in a workplace, say something. Because, Brian, there's never a time when a person spins out at work or domestic violence occurs at work and somebody gets killed, or some kid brings a gun to school, there's never a time where somebody says, "We never saw it coming." Right. No, it's always time there's a go back and here are the clusters that coalesce and created this damaged human acting out.

And yeah, I always like, you know, we prefer the term "the low-calorie intervention," right? If I can stop right here between me and you, maybe you're the person I have a problem with, Greg. Maybe we should have another talk after this call. By... that's not a Freudian slip, folks. He actually... there's a problem. So this way...

If I knew, but that's the thing, too. There's seven people listening. Thank you, Brian. We have a global reach, folks.

Well, if it's seven people listening, all seven of them are contacting us because they know, because they're all pointing at the screen and saying, "It's them!" So so far, we only have that many people in there. They're a very active audience because they don't stop.

But anyway, it's used to us, to use so bad. I didn't know you were here for a long time. Yeah. I thought I was making you up.

So so, if you can nip it in the bud with with just whatever, because one, that's gonna affect that directly affects your life and theirs because I always always have their self-esteem and your quality of life here. Exactly. Right.

Brian. Greg, this goes right back to another use of that "Most Likely, Most Dangerous Course of Action." Sir, maybe you're treating me that way and and you're not intending to. Maybe that's not your daddy. I don't know. Yes. Maybe I haven't learned those boundaries, so your job is to educate me.

And I come in and say, "Hey, Greg, this is what you're doing. This is how it's making me feel. This is where it's coming off." A lot of times that person is gonna go, "Are you serious? I won... I apologize. I had no idea." And they will self-correct their behavior. Most people will do that. And if it is someone with some nefarious intent or they're doing it on purpose, "Hey, they know they can't get away with it with you." And that's what's important because that's why you established those consequences up up in front, and don't be flexible. You must be rigid when it comes to because the minute that you accept it, let's go back to the Australian general again. "What you walk by is what you accept." It's not easy.

Alright, well, I think that's a that's a good landing point for for this episode. So, great job. Thanks. Yeah. I want to thank everyone for listening. We'll talk, we'll talk after this about some boundaries between you and I. So folks, remember, guys, if you're listening along, you enjoy it, you know, like it, share it with your friends. You can follow us on Facebook at HBP RNA. Check out some of the clips we have on The Human Behavior Podcast YouTube channel. We're going to be putting some more up there and doing some little tutorial stuff. See you next week.

A couple of pictures of my skinned knees if you're down. Think that's not a different website. Thanks.

So so, alright, thanks everyone for tuning in. Don't forget, be safe out there and "Training Changes Behavior."