L.O.G. 152 Use a THINK not a THING

Brian Marren and Greg Williams

[Music]

Hello and welcome to the video version of The Human Behavior Podcast. I'm Brian Marren, the host and creator of the show. As always, I will be joined by human behavior expert Mr. Greg Williams, who the show is affectionately named after. On the show, we discuss different topics through the lenses of what we call Human Behavior Pattern Recognition Analysis. If you'd like to find out more about what that is, please check the links in the episode details and go to our website to learn more. Please don't forget to follow us on social media; the links are also in the episode details. And hit the like and subscribe button to help support our work. Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you enjoy the show.

All right, Greg, good morning. Let's go ahead and get started today with a topic that we talk about often, but we'll stick to just a specific topic today of using a "think" versus using a "thing." So, if it's okay with you, I'll quickly define what we mean by that, give some opening remarks, and then we'll throw it to you for some examples. How does that sound?

Love it.

All right. So, what we do at Arcadia and talk about here on The Human Behavior Podcast is we provide non-material solutions to problems, right? How do you think your way out of a really hard problem? And for us, it's through training, coaching, and education, and all that. But there are different ways to approach it. But humans are sort of wired in a sense to look for a "thing" (with a G) rather than a "think" (with a K). And I want to explain a little bit why.

Humans look for technological solutions to difficult problems, and it has always been that way. So, whether we're talking about the invention of the wheel, hand tools, metallurgy, or the latest app on your iPhone, humans are engineers. It's hardwired in a sense into our DNA, and it's essential for our survival. Absolutely. It's such a powerful human trait that we will often look past simpler solutions on our quest to accomplish a tremendous feat. And even when we do create a technological solution, or a "thing" (with a G), we rarely use it to its full potential because we didn't provide a "think" (with a K) to go along with it.

Why does this happen? Well, part of the reason why this occurs is because we often get so focused on the symptoms of a problem that we don't take time to accurately define or understand all of the contributing factors that led to a situation. Most problems that we discuss on this show and that we deal with in our work are complex in nature. And the problem with that is humans don't like complexity, right? We want things to be simple: Is it A or is it B? Is it a zero or is it one? We want to believe that decisions are binary and that either the right choice was made or the wrong choice was made.

But the main reason why I believe we look for a "thing" (with a G) is because having a tangible object that I can see, touch, taste, feel is much easier for me to understand and relate to, and therefore it makes me feel better. You know, Greg, if we only got rid of guns, there would be no more school violence. So, guns are the problem.

There you go.

Or in the exact same manner of thinking, "The only thing that's going to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." This type of thinking will ensure that none of these problems will ever get solved. Right? So, maybe, just maybe, this has more to do with the person than it does with an inanimate object. Maybe we need to "think" (with a K) instead of a "thing" (with a G). So, that's kind of just my basic opening remarks, Greg, on what we're going to get started on the discussion today. But I will throw it to you to open it up from there.

You hooked me already, just so you know. One, we are not saying that technological advances aren't important. Two, this is going to air during what's called the Shot Show, which used to stand for Sports, Hunting, Outdoors, and Technology. Now, tradecraft technology back then, meaning a fire starter for your camp, a grommet for your tent — it's an advantage. I wonder how many people attending this event this week, if you're listening to it, had no idea that Shot Show actually stood for something.

I guarantee it. I will guarantee you that if you took Wednesday and you did what I'm saying, and if you went around quizzing—I wish we were there. What we should do is send Collier to quiz people. Collier with just a microphone and no shirt. He just walks up and grabs people by the head and asks them questions, and is Grunt Style.

So, the next point, Brian, "material" — it sounds French, "material" versus "material." And many people get that wrong, and spell check tried to say "non-material" over and over. What we're saying, folks, is that this is a "thing" (a thing you hold, you turn it on, you plug it in). A "think" is you using your critical thinking skills in the moment. They have to be companions; they have to fit together. If they're separate, like for example, Brian, I got like four examples, but I'm going to spread them out so I don't just sound like I got diarrhea in the mouth.

Think of Rube Goldberg. First of all, Rube Goldberg was making fun of the exact point that we're talking about by making these elaborate machines that started with a mousetrap, and that got the dominoes going, and then the ball started rolling. Remember those old things? Look up Rube. You'll love that. Just to press like toast or something like that. It's a big thing that flips the egg in your pan. He was at ground zero seeing that change. Remember that?

Right.

So, there's this "sleep is overrated, everybody." And Brian, now we've got Brian hooked on the "let's get up at four." No, I cannot sleep past four in the last three weeks, so here I am. There's this movie on the free channel, and it was called "Not What About Bob," "Something's Wrong with Ted," "Look Out for Rob," something like that. And it's about this little computer egg that this kid gets that's demented. "Something's Wrong with Terry," or whatever the name of the little robot is that's trying to help you, but I can't remember. I don't know. But you'll see it, folks, and it's an animated one. And so, every other kid has this egg that's this intuitive AI that thinks and it becomes his buddy.

So, I go, "Okay, this is ridiculous." I watched six minutes of it. I timed myself. Charlie and I have a 15-minute rule: most films are about an hour too long. So you watch 15 minutes of the film, if it blows you, broom it, never watch it again. And you keep a log so you don't get roped in, because sometimes they reintroduce something. Like, "Oh, take a look at this." So, I'm watching this, and six minutes in, I go to IMDb. I got to look it up. What is this supposed to be about, because my ridiculous brain doesn't make sense? And it says, "The wonderful relationship between AI and humans, and how we fall in love and it can be our friend." That's unrealistic. That's not what it is. Okay, you've just found another way to waste time. It's a "thing" to waste time on, right? So, people would argue with me and say, "Well, the first-person shooter game is teaching you dexterity." It's not teaching you [expletive]; it's just giving you an excuse to go in and have it better at the game.

Yeah, yeah.

But so, here we go again. Shot Show. Welcome to the party. So, I want to give you just one story, and we'll light the scandal because now everybody understands the pressure.

So, I'm in the Army, and one of the things that they issue you is extreme cold weather gear. Remember your TA-50 (organizational clothing and individual equipment), the gear that you are issued when you first come into the military? 99% of it you will never use.

Yeah.

I remember going into Iraq and having to go through the Marine's deployment cycle, the supply depot, and go into that whatever you guys called it—it's a very simple term—but the distribution point, and getting stuff. And I go, "I'm going to Iraq," and they're giving me cold weather gear, and they're giving me this stuff. And I go, "No, dudes, I'm not going to be there during cold weather." "Oh, no, you have to have this steel pot, this boot, this [expletive]." And so, here I am carrying this stuff. So, I had to get a conex (shipping container) as soon as I dropped in Iraq, put it all in there so I could turn it in, because you know what it's like turning it in. "Oh, no, it's damaged!" "I've never opened it!" "No, no, man, you have to."

So, here's the extreme cold weather gear. Get it in your head. It's this green parka that's the biggest thing that you've ever seen, that you can make a tent out of, with this old liner that's made out of some Latvian sheep, mountain goat, wool thing. It's so odd-looking, right? And you have to sit there in front of the guy and you have to stitch it in to put it together. They have these long wooden dowels, Brian, and you put them into rope to hold them together, like an old seafarer's button. You get what I'm trying to say, with a loop of rope. And then when we're in the Army, like 18, 20 or something—

Oh, no, this is brand new stuff. They're still issuing it today. I promise you, somebody right now in the Army is going, "Damn, he knows what he's talking about."

So, you got to use that same system to put on the hood, and then you put on your cold weather pants, which are stitched so you have an overlayer of the parka. So, once you put it in, it's like getting into a fireman suit; it's a big onesie. And it's got these leather tabs at all of the corners and big wooden buttons. Buttons that are this big, the size of a half dollar, that you put into the leather loop. Why? Because they engineered that entire suit thinking that you're going to be wearing gloves, and it's going to be 16 below zero, and so you have to be safe.

The time it took to be a cobbler and a stitcher, "witchery" – whatever those people are called. I don't know what the exact term for people—I'm not a doctor, so "stitch witchery" is that the term? Yeah. The time it took to put that Harry Potter suit together, brilliant. They considered everything, even the type of fur, put on the linings to filter out the snow in the air, because the fur can't get wet. You get what I'm trying to say? So, they got Estonian rabbit fur collar and gloves or whatever, and all those people call me. I don't know if you got a rabbit in Estonia.

So, here's my point: Every single soldier that's ever gotten the extreme cold weather gear, went out into the field, into wherever, because in Michigan, Oregon, Alaska, for their training, they always went to the bathroom in the field because you have to. And they [expletive] in their hood.

So, with all of the time that the United States Army spent designing this brilliant cold weather gear that saved more lives than cancer research, what "thing" didn't they think about? They didn't think when you take all of this off and you've got to go to the bathroom and it takes a little extra time, that when you squat down next to a tree, your hood is going to be right below your ass. No engineer sat there, Brian, and put those two things together. So, for time immemorial, since the beginning of issuing that parka, soldiers have [expletive] in their hood. Ask them. Find a U.S. Army soldier, folks. Go out on the street, and when you see a veteran, go, "Hey, were you ever issued this parka?" And they'll tell you the story. "You won't believe it, I [expletive] in my hood." And I apologize for saying that word. We can go "poop" or "peep it out," but everybody will understand it, Brian. So, how can you be so smart to create a "thing" that's going to save lives and protect people and not consider that you have to poop while wearing it? And the effects have been now, well, 40 years that I know.

Just over 40 years.

And there are countless examples of even in just the civilian marketplace, companies sending a product to market. Some company puts all this money and research into it and user interface, and then there's some design flaw in some specific situation like that, that almost renders it useless in some ways, right? It almost becomes, "Oh my God, we didn't see that. We never thought of it in that situation," and it's completely wrong. I'm trying to think of one right off the top of my head right now. I probably will at the end of the pod. Or I'll throw one to you that'll get your hackles up.

Okay. So, I've got a couple of other rudimentary examples, folks, but I want to go right to one that's going to get Brian going because we discuss this often when we're doing The Human Behavior Podcast in a rental car on the way to training.

Yeah.

There are companies out there that make their money selling you school shooting training and saying that their rapid assessment of the situation with guns, and running down the hallways, and "shoot the shooter," and do all this other stuff, and they've got cool little acronyms for what they do. They say this is how you do it. There are two schools right now that are complete parlor trick schools, that are—it's schools of thought. Let me get this right because I'm angry.

I know you're going to be angry.

Yeah. There's a school of thought that you can use data to pick out the likely school shooter. And there are a thousand books being written, and that guy is running around doing seminars. Then there are the others. And by the way, he's 100% right after the school shooter reveals himself by shooting. After that. And the other ones that say, "Hey, listen, 10 or less homicides from a school shooter will occur because you have had this training, and you'll be able to react after he's killed a few people and killed the shooter using these tactics." Brian, what are we doing? That's a "thing" versus a "think." They're saying this architecture with these guns at this time will create a staunch intervention against it. How about going to every school where there's been a school shooter and knocking on the door and asking the kids, Brian, "How many kids knew?" Columbine. How many kids knew everywhere? Portland. How many kids knew Florida? Come on.

And so, this is what we're talking about today, right? The heart of it. This is the heart of it, different cases like this. So, school shooting is a perfect example. Sadly, we look for technological solutions, and we go, "Well, I want to go, I need an app. I need some sort of information to report somehow. We need to armor up the schools. We got to have metal detectors. We need bulletproof windows. Hey, let's get some training on how to barricade students in a classroom, how to lock down. We'll interface with all the local law enforcement and first responder agencies to come up with great plans."

Yep.

Not saying that's not necessary. I'm saying you're already starting at, "This is what works," that when you start there, you're accepting it. You're accepting the fact that it's going to [expletive] happen. And you know what, you reap the whirlwind. I'm not saying you don't need that. Why are you putting up all of your money and resources into reacting to an incident that is very, very easily preventable?

Every school shooting that I personally have studied, which is pretty much every one that's happened in the United States, in some ways—there are some that I don't remember or don't recall the details—since the early 1900s. Since the early 1900s, 1925 Bath Township, Michigan. There are ones before that, especially in the West and stuff like that, but those usually had something to do with some other shooting involved that I've found some research on. But the first big one in 1925, in Bath Township, Andrew Kehoe made a VBED (Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device), wired the school with explosives, blew up the school, killed a bunch of people, blew up his car in the parking lot, killed a whole bunch of folks. So, this is now we're going on a hundred years almost here in the United States alone since this stuff has been going on. Every single one could be prevented. There is no, "This came out of nowhere," or "This was a domestic violence that spilled over into the parking lot of a school." No, all of the pre-event indicators are there.

So, yet, because of where we're at now and it happens so frequently, "Hey, Greg, only five kids died on this last one!" I mean, that's such a [expletive] unreasonable standard that is, but it is the standard once you say that.

Horrible.

Yep. It's, it's, it's, I, we should not tolerate that. We should not accept that. We should not be okay with that. But we are. Every time we get funding and we take some course and you pay for it with your tax dollars, and that school district hires a company to come in and they—"This is what they do: All right, guys, he's going to come in this way, and he's going to shoot up the place, and you're going to do this." If that's what you're investing in, you reap the [expletive] whirlwind. It's now your responsibility.

So, we're going to be talking about this, and I want to go back and forth because I want to give analogies that you can sink your teeth into. Why? Because your school board, your police department, your mayor is going to come up, and they're going to say something, and they're going to say, "Well, we need to harden this, we need to do this, we need to do that." Listen, having a transparent backpack for your kid's school doesn't mean you're absolving yourself of thinking, "Does this kid have a gun?" Those two aren't on the same plane.

So, think about a plane coming into Florida from Bogota, and those passengers are more likely because Colombia has more cocaine distribution than any other country in the world. They're more likely to be carrying drugs. Right? Than the one coming in from Canada.

Exactly.

So, do we make them have transparent bags? No. Do we have technology that supports sniffing and checking? Yep. But we also have good boots on the ground. We have dog people standing there, and we have detection officers. And guess what? The detection officers are great. They go, "Hey, here's something wrong," and they bring the person over. And guess what, Brian? That's a form of intervention before the fact. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Now, what do you go? You go further to the left of bang, and you see that there are people on the ground in Colombia trying to disrupt the production of cocaine. And then there are problems with it. Like even in America, when you say every kid has to have a clear plastic backpack, somebody's going to be making a lot of money on that, Brian.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? So, there are going to be uses for that money. Let me give you an analogy. There was an agency. I don't want to say in Colorado because I live in Colorado, and people will hunt me down and seek me out, even though I'm right, because they'll say, "Oh, you shouldn't have brought that out into the clear light of day." Well, that's the only way you kill a vampire.

So, they have this program called "Cops and Coffee," "Coffee with Cops," those kinds of things all over the place. So, during one of them, a guy comes up and goes, "What does your agency need?" And the chief police officer or sheriff says, "Listen, we need a lot of things." And the guy says, "Well, here is around $150,000" (I don't want to be too specific here). "Do what you want. Make your officers safer."

First purchase, Brian, was SAPI (Small Arms Protective Insert) ballistic plates for rifle shots. Now, I'm not saying, cops listening, that you don't need those ballistic plates. What I'm saying is that every Marine that was in combat, that was next to me in Iraq, that was laying down when a bomb just blew off or somebody was shooting, said, "Oh my God, I wish I had the old SAPI plate carriers." And I would go, "Why?" And they would go, "Well, you're wearing this big barrel. We had a barrel with straps that went around you with all the, you remember the groin protection and the neck protection, all those other things, because I came in later in the game." The people said, "We were more mobile, we could fight, we could move with these younger SAPIs." But the idea was that the SAPI was going to stop the terrorism. That's not what breaks the cycle of violence. You see.

So, here's the symptom. Let's just treat it, right?

It's a "thing," though. You see what I'm saying? "This thing on my chest will make me safer." That's what it is.

Well, but it's not going to if you expose yourself needlessly to violence. See, it balances.

So, and that's the Tommy Boy analogy. It's, "Well, this one has the guarantee on the box," right? And listen to me, that means that you're going to take more chances, so it's going to even out. You want to cancel culture? Cancel that thinking.

So, I want to take you to the carnival. What's the number one thing people go to the carnival for? It's those cars that follow each other over and over. No. A carnival has to lamprey itself to the shark. Why? Because a carnival isn't strong enough, in almost every instance, to stand on its own the test of time. So, carnivals go with things, and they become transient. They hook themselves up to another "thing," and you follow them around. And so, you're in Gunnison; there are 6,000 people, and the rodeo's in town. Guess what you're going to get? You're going to get a carney, and that's going to bring what? That's going to bring carney folk. And there's going to be, "Where's my daughter?" And there's going to be all kinds of other issues with the farmers.

But the one thing that the people go for consistently is the gosh damn elephant ears. What do they call them? Funnel cakes. Yeah, funnel cakes. So, even Shelley—Shelley, you're mad at me—they're so good. Shelley's got a gun, and you're fighting Shelley tooth and nail. All of a sudden, "Go, I've got funnel cakes!" It'll change the whole dynamic of your shootout.

So, here's my thing to you: Some person in the crowd said, "This is the most amazing thing I put in my mouth. I come here every year for the funnel cakes." And they went home and they looked around the Sears catalog and said, "Holy [expletive]! They got a deep fryer! I can make this at home."

Yep.

So, then they went home and they found out that the funnel cake was really easy to make, and it's basically sugar that you dropped in the oil, and it's like a yellow cake, right? Not like a wedding cake, like a really good cake. It's like a standard yellow cake dough. And then you go, "Okay, so you ate nine of them in the first seven days that you had that deep fryer." Then you started figuring out, "Okay, wait a minute, what do I do with this thing?" No, no, no, that's next. That's next. "Can I deep fry a sausage? Can I deep fry an Oreo? Can I deep fry a hot dog in a pad of butter?" So, like huffing the jankum, you're all huddled around the light of the gosh damn deep fryer. You see what I'm saying? Deep-fry everything in the house. "Can we eat it if we deep-fried celery?" Passing all the [expletive].

Now you look at your counter and you go, "Here's this immense thing I've got no counter space for because I had to put away the Keurig." Then you look and you go, "I've got three-quarters of an inch of grease. There's every item for four feet around that son of a gun." And guess what? You put it away, and you never bring it out again. And then somebody goes, "Hey, carnival's in town!" And from the next room, you go, "Meh." Why? Because we all want the "thing," Brian. We want the "thing." And then when we find out that the "thing" isn't what gives us the pleasure, when we find out that the "thing" doesn't make us safer, that we still have to use the tactics and we still have to overcome a wise, cunning enemy, do you see what I'm trying to say? Then the "thing"—now we've spent all our money on the "thing"—and we don't have one person going, "Okay, well, how do we think our way out of this?" That's my fear: the carnival carney folk fear.

No, and that, that's the idea of it makes us—the "thing" makes us feel better, right? And they go, "Okay, well, here, I've got this now. It's like a talisman. It's something I keep in my pocket. I now feel better because I can do this now." Well, you just hit on the other problem with that, too: "Well, now that we have it, we got to use it." Like, we have to use it. So, yeah, we got this giant military vehicle for our police agency. "Well, we got to use it now because we spent money on it. We did." We so—so you're forcing the use of something that you, you're solving a problem that doesn't necessarily exist. "What are you trying to do with this?"

And right now, you've got a SWAT team commander that's typing you and going, "You son of a [expletive], you don't know about it. And you know, if we wouldn't have had the MRAP—" And I'm telling you, what did you do before the MRAP?

Yeah, yeah. Except the conference.

This is what I'm saying. Exactly.

Like, there are certain events that will change the way things are done and tactics, systems, and procedures. And there are always those catastrophic anomalies that are statistically very, very rare that do require some change. So, you'll say like the big bank shootout in Los Angeles years ago, that changed the way because they were wearing body armor, had AK-47s, and the police were literally outgunned until someone from the SWAT team could get there and all that stuff. So, they went, "Hey, you know what? Maybe we need to have this tool available in the vehicle for certain specific situations." Sure. But here's the problem with that: now it's there, now we got to use it. Now it's no longer just for these highly catastrophic but low [frequency]—you know, was the same type of space rifle used in Burlington?

That's what I was saying. What were the outcomes? So, now instead of using it, we have to use that in hushed tones because right now, a cop is going, "Man, my police rifle saved my life." Well, not so much for some cops that died. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Because they didn't have a commensurate level of training.

And I draw to you the training in Dan Keller, Brian. You take a look at that and you say, "Okay, if Dan Keller would have had a police rifle, he'd still be alive today." That's not true. That's not true. Never went to his weapon until too late. And we're not going to try to bash Dan Keller. We're just saying that, look, if your training isn't commensurate with whatever tool it is that you have, do you see what I'm trying to say? Then it's rendered useless or overkill. It's so much.

So, here's the thing: explain to me, how—explain everyone listening—we just went from us dealing with school shootings to dealing with police response to these or purchases or, you know, because we always get the, "Oh, we don't, we don't have the money for that." Everyone's got—there's money out there for everything. You choose to spend it elsewhere. Okay, that's a choice. But we've got these are two different things. You're talking about funding and training at a police department, and then you're talking about school shootings. Greg, what the hell do those two things have to do with each other? What do you mean? Here. Like, you get what I'm saying? Explain, just explain to the listeners how these two are the same problem set in a sense.

So, there are 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States. That means somewhere over 800,000 law enforcement officers sworn in the United States that are operating on the streets. They have money for training. They have forfeiture funds. They have buyback programs that give them money. They've got the Department of Defense program 1033, which has literally given half a billion dollars of military surplus to law enforcement agencies just since 2017. Not since the inception of the program that happened back in time. No, it was six billion since the '90s. It's been over half a billion dollars just since 2017. Administrations have been loving it and hating it. I side with the Obama administration camp on this. I remember Shelley and I couldn't get between the funny Dunkin Donuts and the store that we were going to back then. They had a JCPenney in Montrose—they don't any longer. And JCPenney had a section where everything was discounted. I could buy shirts for a dollar and stuff, right? No [expletive], take a look at the tag. But we couldn't get from the Dunkin Donuts in Montrose, which was our stop—because there was no Dunkin Donuts anywhere near Gunnison—to the parking lot of the JCPenney. And there was an MRAP (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle) with "Montrose Sheriff's Office" painted on it, and an MRAP blocking the road. And I looked and I go, "It is the apocalypse! We have to head back to the ranch!"

What could Montrose be using? They had a barricaded gunman in one of their hotels. Then they found out it was just a barricaded guy that was a drug addict, didn't want to go to jail for a warrant. But they had blocked the street, Brian. What do you think it looks like as a citizen when I see the MRAP? And again, somebody's going to go, "Yes, but those officers were safer." Yeah, the officer in the MRAP was safer. Sooner or later, you've got to get out of that son of a [expletive].

Do you know that right now, WRAP (Weaponized Remote Arrest Platform) has a bolo (immobilizing device), and the bolo WRAP shoots out and immobilizes the person for a matter of seconds? How does it work? It immobilizes you, not because it gives you a shock to your system or changing your brain waves or anything else. It understands the principle that the brain hates divided attention. It works to create an overwhelming amount of divided attention in the seconds after it's applied, shot from a distance. Then what do you have to do, Brian? You have to run up and arrest the person in the old-fashioned way. So, I'm for those type of things, right? I'm for technology advancing my likelihood of staying safe. But the MRAP is a bank vault on wheels, and you've got to get out of it.

What was the big mistake that we made in Iraq? We made encampments. We literally made bases, forward operating bases, that were so big, high wall palaces, right? And then all of a sudden, it was like, "Okay, well, nothing's changing. We have to actually go outside of these walls." Come on. What's the matter?

So, dear analogy: the school shooting. What's the difference? Listen, you can build the best lock. You can teach the kids to pile stuff against the door. You can improve the glass on the classroom doors and the lock mechanism and all that other stuff. And you keep thinking you're making your kids safer. You're not. You've got to sit down with a kid. Look, fire drills make kids safer. You understand? Smoke detectors make kids safer. But it still takes the user to go, "Hey, what's that? Anybody smell smoke?" and get the hell out of that situation.

Yeah, there's a human component. And that's the "thing" in all those cases with, with a lot of, with the school shooters is all, like, all the kids knew. It's just walking up. Everything. Unlike recently, I had someone ask me—I want to keep it vague because I know people listen to the show that I know—I said, "Hey, if I told you, do you think this person is doing that?" And I go, "I don't know. I have no idea." "What if I told you this person was doing that?" I go, "I would not be surprised at all. I have no evidence to support whether that is occurring, but if you tell me that it is, it would not surprise me." So, what does that mean? It means I have some general idea that something was going on there, right?

Well, how was that ending for the kid? If you said, if you walked up and said, "Hey, if you heard that so-and-so shot up your school, you didn't go, you stayed home sick, and you heard so-and-so shot up your school, would that be surprising?" And if they say, "No, that wouldn't surprise me at all," there's your guy. Like, it's not hard. And you've got it, but we don't want to intervene. And you know, I don't know, it's like this ridiculous way of looking at things is, "No, you have to get involved." They're children, like, especially. You have to be involved. They know what's going on. We did the whole playground episode a few weeks ago, how everything you learn, you learn on the playground. Those kids know who's who in the zoo. I can grab the instructor and say, "Who's that over there?" "Oh, that's that's so-and-so." "What about that group over there?" "Well, they don't like playing with him because this." They can pick it apart right there. They know everything that's going on. Their whole life is there. Well, it's no different than the school.

But, no, Greg, we're going to bring in some outside experts who wrote a book on a topic that they've never actually done before.

Yeah, but they wrote a great work on that. They've never actually had a—You're right, they've never prevented a school shooting before, but they wrote a great book about it. You know what I'm saying? And we're going to come up with this analysis tool, and then afterwards, it's just, it's just junk. It's so bad. And I, you know me, I'm ready to call [expletive] out on it.

I know. And that's why I like to bring those topics up.

Oh, and Brian, that's a great point. So, if we're going to hurt some feelings, let's hurt some feelings right now.

Every single cop that was ever a cop that went through the same police academy—I identify first of all, 18,000 police agencies, every one of them doesn't have a police advisory board and an academy and FTOs (Field Training Officers) and everything else. Sometimes they get outsourced, Brian. Smaller agencies have to send their people somewhere else. Our smaller agency will get an officer that's trained from somewhere else or say, "You have to have this training." Okay, so I've known legends in my time. I've known the average cop in my time, and I've known a large amount of cops over, even with 30 years experience, that were oxygen thieves. You get what I'm saying? They've never done a damn thing. But that didn't stop them from using their bona fides. We use two terms way too much in life: "hero" and "subject matter expert." Terms we use all the time.

So now that person comes out, and that person's got a special training. Whatever. Look deeper than the resume. Find out who these people are, because most of them are charlatans. And I don't mean the person that you hired for your organization. I mean, stop for a minute and take a look deeper than the person was a soldier. Same thing with special forces. These are our friends. Yeah, we love them, and they've gone through the training. But guess what? Not all of them come out the same, and not all of them have combat experience, and not all of them are wonderful. And I'm saying that when you do that, Brian, what you do is you say, "This person has a PhD in abhorrent psychology." And how much street work did they do in school shootings, Brian?

Now, if you're talking about studying or you're talking about going and conducting interviews and going to the Pace shooting in Florida. When you're talking about a subject matter expert, you're not talking about somebody that, "I've read every one of the books on this topic." Stop. You get what I'm trying to say? And all of a sudden, you bring into your boardroom, you say, "Okay, this former Delta Force commando is going to come in and teach people what it takes." And your HR person is sitting there going, "Wait a minute, I don't understand the correlation."

There's great training out there. So, training doesn't have to be uber expensive. You just have to search for the right training to fit the gloves.

So, let's get into that, because that's obviously the point of a "think" versus "thing." Because there's a lot of talk out there. There are platitudes. People, organizations say, "Hey, put your people first. You got to invest in your people." And what they do is either throw money at something or give some different privileges to those employees. Well, investing in your people is building them up, is training them, right? So, in a sense, training is a technology, meaning better training is in the broad definition of the sense of a technology. The higher level of training you have at something, the more effective and efficient you will be, right? So, that training process, let's say I put whatever that is for whatever subject it is, if you get, I don't care if it's learning to work the fryer at McDonald's, training in that. So, once you do, okay, now I can do it faster and more efficiently. I know all the tips and tricks. That makes me more effective. I now need less people to do the same job is the idea.

Well, it's no different than any of these problems. But we pass everything off. And if you look at the recent one in Michigan, we go back and forth about responsibility, right? So, like the recent school shooting in Michigan, where they're trying to charge the parents with some sort of charges for, you know, not preventing this in some manner, which that's shaky legal ground right there. But without getting into that, the idea is we want to go, "Why don't we just focus on this kid and what he did?" I mean, why don't we focus on the person responsible for the incident, directly responsible for the incident, that didn't have to do what they did? They made a choice. But it's like when we do that, though, people are uncomfortable doing that in many situations, because I think it's because we're then saying, Greg, "That means I'm potentially responsible for my actions," right? Meaning we're all responsible for this. You get what I'm saying? Because you see these different cases where they want to go after some people in some cases, and in other cases, they say, "Well, no, they didn't know any better." And it's like, you can't exactly address the behavior.

Stop, stop addressing emotion. Stop. For example, I just sent you that this morning. The woman in Chicago that her actions led to the death of her six-year-old, she just got a five million dollar bond. Brian, she couldn't have paid a fifty thousand dollar bond. That's ridiculous. And we did it because of emotion. So, number one, take emotion out of your argument. Number two, take skin color out of the argument. Right now, I can hear people clattering and fighting. And the third thing is, let's make sure that we deal with the issue, the behavior, the responsibility, rather than all of the other stuff. So, we're going after parents for the first time ever in the shooting. I told you how important that was for Oxford. But we're going around it the whole wrong way. We're saying, "Keep those bastards in jail over Christmas," and, "You, your dad will teach them." I don't teach them [expletive]. That's not what it does. You can't unring the bell. We want to create a standard where people say, "Something is wrong."

So, then we go to Texas, where Texas has two, two in just a matter of a month, incidents where people called and said, "Hey, this quality of life is going down because this guy won't mow his lawn," and they ended up in barricaded gunmen situations with shooting. One involved the death of the person with the long lawn. The other both ended up in barricaded gunmen, just one was de-escalated, Brian. We can't continue to come in with a hammer to solve all our problems. And yet, we do programs where people come back from the military and they say, "We want to apply this military standard now." Right now, somebody's going to go, "Hey, fat man, that's what you do with your company." No, we don't. We talk about human behavior. We have nothing to do when we give an analogy about something. We give a worldly analogy about all of the situations that could occur. And at the end, you have to think your way out of those.

Well, that's when people do say that. It's like, "Oh, your program in the military. This is the way." And this program existed before the military adoption, long before the military. And I'll tell you the other thing: when you went to the range, they didn't issue you ammo. You didn't shoot. You thought when you were at a thousand meters. You watched the village and you said, "It's Colonel Mustard in the study with the pipe wrench." That's how you won, Brian, in problem-solving. Since making a situation, then problem-solving it. Why don't we teach our kids in the class instead? We teach the kids what to do when a [school shooter] pops up, start shooting, let's do all this. We never push that dial left, right?

Because, you know, the iPhone is a great analogy, meaning I have, I'll pay for my iPhone. I've got whichever model. I don't have the latest one. You've got one. Your pictures, your pictures are amazing. Those cameras are awesome.

You should see the selfies I take.

Yeah, but I don't want those. Please stop sending those. They, so, but the idea is, everyone, most people using their phone, their iPhone, that phone can do so much more than you even know about, let alone utilize. There are so many different features on that, so many different things they can interface with, so many things it can do and be involved in your life in a number of different ways. You literally do not even use all the features. It's an over-engineered piece of equipment for what most humans use it for.

So, the idea is, we always want the latest and greatest and newest. But we're not even taking advantage. We won't take the time. So, I'll spend the money because it's whatever it is a month for my phone bill, $100 and something dollars a month for my unlimited plan, right, that I have, plus on top of that, the payment for the phone, which is like $800 or something, whatever it is, spread out over the contract. So, I'll pay for that, but I don't want to take the time to sit down and go through a video tutorial on how to use it better. I don't want to take the time to sit here and learn all these different little tips. So, it has to alert me. It says, "Hey, there's this tip you can do, there's this tip you can do." But you can literally go on YouTube and spend the rest of your life watching videos on all of the things that your iPhone can do. But you don't want to take that time. You pick up the phone. "No, no, I got this. Yeah, I got it right here. I know, I know how to use this. It's fine. I've been using a phone my whole life." Right? So, that's part of the problem.

Is that everyone wants the new. "Well, we need new policies. We need new training. Let's spend some money over here. Let's hire this company to get us all a [expletive] certificate in something which is worth the price of the piece of paper that it's [expletive] printed on."

It would be better if you rolled up that certificate and smoked it.

Yeah, or wipe your ass with it. Whatever it is. Because it obviously doesn't work. But that's our world now. Our world is certification. Look at the, everyone in the certified executive project. Everyone is certified and they're training a week before.

Exactly. So, listen, listen, here's a name that you're never going to hear, and Brian, I'd ask you to consider putting it on our site because I love the man, and I know you do too, and I love the work that he does from Canada: former LEO Brian Willits. So, Brian—

Absolutely.

First of all, it's the number one thing that I read when he publishes it. He's who actually put out valuable content. And guess what? It's not only verifiable, it's scientific, and guess what? It's consistently great stuff. So, Willits' last thing that nobody reads—and I hope they do read it, Brian, because I love you. Willits' last thing is about these training things, these myths that have been around for ages. Now listen, I started training in the '70s, and we've updated like the phone. I love your analogy about the phone. We've updated that phone every time. For those of you listening, Combat Hunter was an incredible program, but we're not in Iraq anymore. Okay? We had a modified Combat Hunter for Afghanistan. We're not in Afghanistan anymore. So, take a look at it. If you're still studying the original Combat Hunter program, it's outdated as that flip phone you got. Motorola. You've got to update that [expletive] because the technology and the world and things change.

So, Willits talks about what you and I were talking about. Now, this is the amazing thing: it's about a week after you and I had the discussion where I said a spurious claim was made by one of these training companies, and the training companies said, "This will improve," and, "It's better than long-term training," and, "It's faster," and all that other stuff. I go, "These are spurious, scurrilous claims, and they're going to come back to bite them in the ass." And Willits writes about it. But Willits writes about it like a Canadian and says, "Hey, calm down." You know me, I'm rattling the cage. He puts in these incredible quotes, took the research, and took the time to say, "Most of the stuff that you've learned about training is false." Training does change behavior at his point as well. It's training that changes behavior. But then you've got the charlatans that are out there that write something about muscle memory, or "blink," which is a great thing. I love Gladwellian thinking. But that doesn't change the ground truth.

The ground truth changes when you give the person—look, at the ranch, we used to buy fly fishing boxes that had the Powderhorn Ranch brand logo on them. And you open them up, and the funny thing about them was that all the flies were in there. The only difference was the wing, or whether they were bead head. So, the wing shape, whether they were back or forward, and whether they had a little silver or gold bead on the front of them. Brian, the tented wings that looked like a little tent. But all the flies were white. And then what we had is we had a number of markers in different earth tones. We would take that and give it to the fly fisherman and go out and say, "We're going to study entomology." We would take a rock from the shore and roll it over and look at the bugs that were there. Then we would take a white fly that we bought for almost nothing, and we would color it to match the flies on the shore. Everybody else was going in and buying a fly that cost nine dollars a fly. You know how many flies you use fly fishing every day? And then, you know, they would have a custom box with the three things and this, you know, fly. And they're wondering why the trout aren't biting, because those trout have never seen a Gander Mountain. Do you see what I'm trying to say? Those gosh damn trout are up in the middle of nowhere, and they eat what's around them every day.

That's what I'm talking about with training. What we have to do is you have to have training that is bespoke to the skill that you're trying to teach. You have to—look, I'm all for having a speaker come in and get a veteran. Hire a veteran to come in and speak to your organization. You'll be blown away at their insight and magic. But if there's no correlation at the end—what I mean when I talk about finding an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) and finding a student in class that might explode, do you see what I'm saying? If that correlation doesn't happen in your brain, if you don't understand the sense-making and how it leaves the problem solved and then creates a decision point. And Willits gets it. He's one of those guys that gets it. So, he puts it in there too.

So, all of these claims that, "Hey, I can teach you better because I did it." What you're doing is you're hiring the guy. Do you remember a long time ago that other guy that was doing the training in country, and he, and he wasn't in country, and his training still isn't around anymore? Why? Because you hired the guy, of course he could do it. He was Burt Wonderstone. He was the [expletive] magician. But guess what? It didn't transfer. That skill didn't transfer to every person in your unit. Our goal when we come to training is that every single module that we teach you, you're able to walk out of that room, no matter how many modules you have, and apply it right then. And we don't give certificates. Yet some of the places we teach insist on creating a certificate. The certificate doesn't mean you're fluent. It doesn't mean you learned a "thing." It just means you attended.

And, you know, there's a lot of issues with different training companies and how that stuff works. And I know a lot of more well-intentioned or think that a lot of what we're doing is well-meaning, well-intentioned, and well-researched, and well thought off. It's just not going to solve the problem. Like, it's again, it works perfectly in the closet.

And people walk away going, just like the funnel cake, Brian, people walk away, "It was the damn finest funnel cake I ever had!"

It goes back to this tangible object or process or "thing." It's like, "Well, look, I have this. Like, I'm good. My house is secure. I have a, I have a gun." It's like, "Okay, go on." Like, that doesn't mean anything. Or, you know, that person has a gun, the gun is the issue. That's why I bring it up, because humans are horribly hypocritical sometimes, or we won't apply concepts that really work in one area to another. We think it has to be redone or redesigned. You know what I mean?

One of the things that, you know, it's like what I always say about human behavior: it's incredibly more complex than most people realize, and it's way more simple than people are willing to accept. People won't accept sometimes how simple sometimes people are. Like, "Well, I got angry and I killed the guy." Someone's like, "That's impossible! There has to be something else here." "Jimmy never ever killed a guy!" So sometimes it's literally that simple, right? And we don't want to accept that. And then because we don't understand these problems, it goes back to what I was talking about at the beginning about not clearly defining what the problem is, not clearly understanding the contributing factors involved in this. We look for this simple answer.

And, you know, that is now in 2022 and in the last however many years has translated into, "Okay, we have this online 'thing' that everyone logs in and does. We're certified. We met the requirements. We're good." Well, hopefully what good comes from that—the recent school shooting in Michigan is that that [expletive] changes and it goes away, because liability is now going to be a little bit different, and who is actually responsible for this stuff. And I think that maybe, maybe that could be a catalyst for change. But we need to stop looking at it as, "Well, I just, I bought this program. We hired a company." Greg, no, you have to do, you have to be the one who actually takes responsibility and goes out and does it. It has to be a proactive "think." You have to get people on board. And does that take training and time? Yeah, it takes time. It's likely no more expensive, and in many cases, less expensive than what people are spending their money on. But here's the problem: it takes, it takes time and calories, Greg. You mean I have to go burn calories?

Here we are, here we are, back to the analogy of doing the funnel cakes when I actually had to do it at home and plug it in and bring the oil and use the thermometer. It's a lot more involved.

Exactly. Because there, all I got to do is stand in line.

And I'm okay with standing in line. I'm okay with standing in line, Brian. The idea is that absolutely everything that we've talked about, again, some people are going to walk away or drive away or do whatever the hell you do today, and some people are going to go, "Oh man, here they are, they're bashing cops or the prosecutor or my school or my school system or anything else." Not bashing any of that. We're bashing the old thinking. We've got to take away that old-school thinking that's still so steeped in historical mythology and [expletive]. You get what I'm trying to say? That the zoology that we've got to shine the light on it and kill it. And we've got to say that training is better than a "thing." And if you have a "thing," the "thing" is ridiculously worthless without the training. And if you don't have the buy-in of the students and the teachers and the community, you're never going to solve school shootings.

You want us to solve domestic violence homicides? Take away marriage. Okay, and they all just become homicide. What, are we stupid? Yeah, we do things like that, Brian. We think that, listen, it's just after New Year, and you're standing at Shot Show, listening to us on a podcast, and you're looking at that thermal walkie-talkie, which is also, if we just had 90 of those, that would solve all the problems. And I'm taken back, and I'm telling you one thing: look, I'm a fat ass, but I work out every single day, even when I'm hurting. You know why? Because when I do the, what's the guy that just died in bed, Bob Saget? You see, when I do my Saget-Marren, whoever first finds my body, they're going to put me in a dress. They're going to fill the room with bonbons and, and, you know, turn it into a petting zoo. Whatever. I want it to be memorable. So, I'm going to go out under the best terms possible. And even though it hurts, I do it every day. I study every day. I rehearse every day for what I do.

We have to stop thinking that there's a tool out there that's going to stop it. The kid had the gun in his bag, and it was incumbent upon you to check that kid, and nobody did. That's a human failure, Brian. That's not a system failure. AI's not going to help us out of that. His doodles, his drawings on those pieces of paper that they found in class before this ever happened were almost identical to Harrison's. I mean, did you not get a shiver when I sent you that? If you held them next to each other, you would have thought it was just another page in their journal. Like, you would have literally thought it was just another page in their journal.

We're not bashing your school. We're not bashing your police agency. We're trying to empower you. Why? Because I've met shitty 7-Eleven clerks. I've met a shitty librarian. I've met a lot of shitty docs. Did a shitty haircut. You get what I'm trying to say? But certain things, we have to do certain things. We have to accept when it comes to a lesser standard of training for your personnel. Go out, research the training, get the training, and then empower those people to use the training. Don't hang the certificate on a wall. Kick that person out into the hallway and say, "Now go apply your trade. Go do the 'thing' that you learned." You know, and I'll tell you, Brian, I fear that the Shot Show is going to sell a lot of parkas, and I fear that they're going to sell a lot of people—

Well, that's, that's, that's the challenge to throw. Ain't going to make anybody smarter. Do you think, do you think they'll be selling funnel cakes there? We won't be there.

I have a, I have a sad day funnel cake experience, not a bad, oh my God, too much of a good experience. We'll call it that. When I was a kid back at Irish Fest, I ordered a funnel cake, and then they screwed up and made two, because two different workers there thought I had it. So, they just gave me the second one as well. So, as a kid, what's better than one funnel cake? Two of them. Both of them down, and felt on top of the world for 30 seconds, and then got a little dizzy, and then the room started spinning, and then I vomited profusely. So, one funnel cake is my limit. I learned that.

That's how Diabeto lost his foot. But I'll tell you right now, the challenge is not to eat funnel cakes. The challenge is, you know, what are you looking for? Are you looking for a "thing," or are you looking for a "think"? Are you looking for a tool to use in a specific situation, or are you looking for a thought process, a mental model, a way to make better decisions, a way to act on the information and the policies and procedures that you already have? You know, what are you trying to do here? I mean, there is no golden piece of the puzzle, right? There is no "thing" that you can go get that solves your problems. Like, we keep making stuff that maybe solve one part of the problem or help alleviate it, but that's all it's meant to be. A metal detector is there to prevent someone from potentially bringing a gun onto an airplane at an airport. Okay, well, that's not the only thing they can bring on. That doesn't solve the problem. That doesn't say, "Hey, now we're good." No, no, there are 10 million other things they've got going on. There's a screener, there's a baggage screener. You go through, there are people that ask you questions. It's not just this one "thing." But we keep having this mindset of it.

And then you'll get the, "Well, now we need the cameras and the balustrades and this and the razor wire fence." And it's like, do you need that? Do you need that, or do you want to just make your people better at identifying this stuff, which is the "and another thing" argument? Yeah, you get what I'm trying to do? To do a subscription service on that, too, Greg.

So, I'll talk about a, I'll talk about a boss back in the day. I'm not going to name him because his son is still around. I love the guy to death, everything else, but the situation is funny, but I want you to listen to this tragicomedy and understand what it means. So, we're all getting ready to graduate from the academy. I was the only one that was going through the academy that had just come out of the military. So, we had to go to the arms room because none of us had a gun belt, or a Sam Browne, or a holster. And all the holsters were either a flap holster that was a cross-draw, or these holsters that had this swivel on them. So, when you sat in your police car, the holster wouldn't ride up on you. It was the worst leather gear ever.

As we were in line with that, then we were getting our .38s, Brian. You've got to imagine the revolvers that they were issuing. And so, we're at the end of the line, and the arms guy is talking to the shift lieutenant, who I won't say who he is, and he goes, "Well, we can't give these guys guns to drive from here to Macomb for the graduation if we don't issue them bullets." And the lieutenant looked gobsmacked, and he goes, "What are you talking about?" And he goes, "Well, we're issuing them the guns. They're going to the graduation, then they're going to come back and, you know, take off the guns and go back to, you know, the FTO training. These aren't the guns they qualified on. But we can't give them empty guns. We got to get bullets." And the lieutenant shook his head and goes, "I don't get it." And he goes, "We can't let them leave the police station to go to the college graduate and then come back without bullets in their guns. They're cops. They're going to be wearing uniforms. What if they encounter something? What if something comes up?" And the lieutenant goes, "Nah, we're not going to give them [expletive] bullets. Because if we give them bullets, one of them is going to go out there and one of them, I'm in progress, they're going to shoot." This argument went on for 15 minutes. We almost missed the bus to go to our graduation, Brian.

In the old days, you showed up with a badge and a gun. In the older days, it was a badge and a truncheon. Good cops, good soldiers, they understand to utilize the stuff that they're given. And would it be wonderful to have all this new wave and newfangled stuff? Exactly. But if it doesn't come with the training and the mindset, if it doesn't come with the understanding of the spirals that come from that tool, if you're going to advertise something to me, don't come to me with an MRAP with a minigun on top of it and go, "For urban law pacification," because I'll call [expletive] every time.

Yeah, no. It's over-reliance on "things." And it's just going to continue the cycle is what's going to happen. So, now we get, you know, when we get these stupid little data points that show, "Well, look, they paid for this, and then technically here, there were less," and, "You know what? Not as many people died here." And it's like this, this actuarial table of [expletive]. And it's just [expletive], like, "Okay, that's the line right there." "Actuarial table of [expletive]." That's the buzzword for today's episode. Put that on, there's your title.

No, because that's what's happening.

No, it is where we're saying, "And was this person certified at this time to do this thing that had nothing to do with breaking down the situation and say they made a good choice, a logical, rational choice, or they didn't?" No.

I, I agreed. And I don't know, I think that's a good place to end on, because I'm already starting to get too specific on some of the, some of the people.

Because you're angry. And it's okay to be angry. Listen, there are certain things that it's okay to be angry about, because anger comes and goes. This isn't rage, and we're just trying to stimulate you that's listening or watching to think. And not think outside the box. There's plenty of room in the box. Let's not, let's not get into that. But other than the, Brian, Willits should write on the thinking outside the box analogy. I've met like three people in my entire life that I would go, "That person, they can think outside the box." The rest of everyone, just focus on what's inside the box and utilizing what's in it. Get used to the box.

I still haven't figured out all this, I still haven't figured out everything in the box yet, so maybe something. Two more corners than mine. Yeah.

Hey, but that thing that shout out to Willits. Look, we've run into a lot of people. Put his link in. A lot of great. Put his link in the episode details. Folks, dive into one. You'll be hooked for good.

Yeah, he's, he's, he's amazing. And so, if you're listening, there's plenty more on our Patreon site. We answer all kinds of listener questions on there as well. And, you know, we ask people, if you enjoy the podcast, you can check out the Patreon site, or at least just, you know, share this episode with your friends or someone and say, "Hey, here's why I think you should listen to these guys." And just share that out there. It really, it really helps, and it helps get the message out. And then hopefully, helps get us in front of some of these problems, it don't matter time before it gets to the right person, because we've dealt with this stuff before. But anyway, I think that's good for the day before I get into specifics and someone sends us a nasty letter from their law firm, saying, "Yeah, whatever."

Oh, that's coming. Well, you know what, they knew. They're going back and forth saying, "This is what we can provide," and they passed. So, you know what?

Exactly.

Yeah, we could go, we could go hours on to this one. I would say this: all of this talk of funnel cakes has made me hungry. And in my post-run malaise, I have to eat at least half of my own body weight, right? Yeah, to survive. It's winter, too.

All right, man, I think that's a on funnel cakes is a good, good ending for the show.

Thank you.

Thanks, everyone, for tuning in again. We appreciate your support and listening and following and sharing it with your friends. And don't forget that training changes behavior.