Tag Archives: violence of mind

Hard Skills for Hard Times (and Good Times, too)

Posted on by

 

Hard skills are generally referred to as specialized, technical skills. I tend to think of them as the type of skills that matter most during hard times, such as mechanics, farming, welding, construction, etc. If we expand those hard times to include the current events in Ukraine, important hard skills could even include the use of weaponry and small unit/guerrilla tactics. 

After more than a decade in the firearms and training industry, I grew tired of the obsession with the weaponry and fighting and annoyed with the willful ignorance of all of the more widely useful skills one could obtain. That obsession combined with and fueled by social media leads people to be very one dimensional. It’s as if every single problem will be solved by a plate carrier, a gun or a submission choke.

But what happens if the grid is damaged or destroyed and you have to make a broken generator work to have power for important family needs? What will you do when the supply chain is disrupted by government fuckery and global crisis and your vehicle breaks, but parts are not available right down the street anymore? (I mean, it’s damn near there now.) 

Instead of owning 12 extra AR-15’s, how about a few backup rifles, a generator, a welder, and a good set of tools? Instead of taking 4 shooting classes and your 3rd medical course this year, why not take 2, and then take a welding class, an electrician course, a carpentry framing workshop? 

Hard times don’t always explode upon you as a communist invasion on a Thursday morning. Most often, hard times will slowly creep in and life will just get harder and harder, almost too slowly to even notice at first: $2 gas becomes $3 gas, you adjust and keep going. Housing prices rise a few percentage points, you adjust and keep going. $3 gas becomes $3.50 gas, you adjust and keep going. Lumber, steel and food commodities rise a few percent, you adjust and keep going. Often, the market adjusts and the inflation is nipped off before it becomes unbearable. 

But eventually, they can’t stop it. The pandemics, panics, wars and failed economic policies of corrupt governments and the global corporations that influence them eventually cause too much damage. Then, you are paying $4+ for a gallon of gasoline, housing prices in many places go up by 20%, lumber and steel prices make the construction of anything cost prohibitive for many people. 

This is where we are now. 

In 2021, since March of 2020, steel went up over 200%, lumber peaked out at a 280% increase, average rents increased over 15% nationwide with some cities seeing increases over 20% in a single year, housing prices followed suit, in 2021 alone fuel prices rose 58.7% over 2020 (according to the federal Energy Information Administration), and global food price index saw increases up to 30%. All of this happened in one 12 month period.

At the same time, Wages and salaries increased 4.5 percent for the 12-month period ending in December 2021 and increased 2.6 percent for the 12-month period ending in December 2020. You’ll notice that is nowhere near the increase needed to keep up with the aggressive inflation of fuel, commodities and housing. Those are some scary numbers. Keep in mind, we haven’t even begun to see the global implications of the Russian/Ukraine crisis (two very large producers of world commodities like oil, wheat and steel).

You can’t shoot that dangerous problem in the face, and no level of jiu jitsu game can ward off the dangers of this type of problem. Explaining it away doesn’t work either. Sure, you can point out the volatility of the housing market, or the fuel market, and that would be true. We have seen spikes and returns like that before in many of these markets. But ALL of them at the same time? No. That is not business as usual. This is that proverbial dead canary. 

To talk about “preparation” in the self defense world is to typically push the ideas of weapons, ammunition, medical training, combat training and maybe resource stockpiling. But what will you do when the enemy is not a violent one, at least not at first. The attrition of a broken supply chain, a devalued dollar and rampant inflation can be a deadly yet silent and formless enemy. A recession can become a depression very easily, and it can happen while you ignore that it is even occurring. When the problem isn’t rogue bands of meth heads raiding your house, but rather is a simple broken control arm on your work truck, and the part can’t be bought anytime soon, or is cost prohibitive for you at the time, it will take a different set of skills to get by. 

This is a set of skills that many of our grandparents and great grandparents had by necessity. Those skills are capabilities in industriousness, frugality, ingenuity, craftsmanship, self-sufficiency, bartering and cooperation. That is a list of skills we have largely lost in this society, our modern American culture is now built upon commercialism, throw-away products supplied by a thriving supply chain, full grocery stores and a total lack for the need to have hard skills to get by on. The problem comes when that culture is shocked by the disruption of that supply chain and the inability to continue to farm out your service needs to others. 

The Way Forward

The best possible solution for us on an individual level is to be as skilled and prepared as possible. Now, follow me here. This isn’t a doom and gloom post fear mongering some Great Depression that will inevitably come. It may happen, it may not. The actions of our global governments and the morality of the global corporations will have a lot to do with which way it goes, so hold your breath according to your own beliefs about the future. 

The things that I am suggesting here actually have very practical purposes and real rewards even in the best case scenario we can imagine. The development of yourself and your skills is never, ever, a bad thing. Learning skills to work with your hands, repair your essential property and equipment or to provide services to others on a small scale will enhance your life in many ways when things are good economically. Having a balance of skills and knowledge outside of what we love most, or what we do professionally, only makes us more capable. 

Another thing I would love to see happen in my lifetime would be a significant increase in layman “schools”, that is, places where independent specialists in a given subject matter offer open enrollment training courses and classes to nonprofessionals to learn. In the same way that we have a wide open market of professionals in the firearms training world that offer open enrollment courses so the average non-law enforcement, non-military civilian can learn some real skills with weapons and defense, we need equivalent offerings in every other hard skill as well. 

There are a growing number of these available now, and we need to see more growth. That happens when the demand for it becomes greater, so get out and learn something! I personally am writing this article at the Las Vegas airport while traveling back home from taking a few specialized TIG welding courses offered by a private company out here (The Fabrication Series). I plan on taking more courses in metal fabrication, metal shaping, welding, engine building and machinist operations for as long as I can afford to do it. I’m even on the lookout for courses in gardening, canning and food preservation, carpentry etc. because I can use all of those skills in good or bad times as well!

The two ways we create this alternative learning economy is to first be a student and add to the demand for professionals to take the time to teach others, and second to offer courses and training to others when you have mastered a skill that others could benefit from. Often the hobbyist, nonprofessional can learn, in just a few days, much of what is needed to teach themselves forward and get started with their own projects at home. In the absence of these private training opportunities, we are forced to attend a school or university with their grossly inflated tuition costs and equally fluffed curriculums. 

For example, if I wanted to learn automotive TIG welding before, I would have had to either find a job with someone willing to teach on the job–near impossible to find–or I would have had to attend a full-blown course at a technical college learning more than I need for my particular goals (not to mention spending time and money that would not have a good ROI if I don’t plan on doing it for a profession. Now, I can hop on a plane and hit up a day or two of training, learn some hard skills and ways to practice them, and head back home to immediately apply that new knowledge. 

No one can predict the future of our world. I seriously emphasize that point, no one can tell us what will happen in the wake of the unprecedented craziness we have experienced in the past two years. And it’s only getting worse so far. Learning how to fix things and keep things running may be a necessary skill in your lifetime. But even if it is not required to survive someday, why not use our ability to become smarter, increase our capabilities and become more self-sufficient? A huge bonus is that while we are doing all of that, we could be creating a learning economy that bypasses the stranglehold inflated schools have held for a hundred years and offers tailored learning opportunities for nonprofessionals to gain desired skills at affordable costs and time investments. 

Because of the apparent inflation and obvious supply chain interruptions, I do suggest procuring any equipment that you have been thinking about getting. So get that tool set, generator or welder you’ve been pondering. It’s only getting more expensive and harder to get at this point. I am literally watching the equipment on my purchase list jump significantly in price while I budget to make the purchases. 

In conclusion I am rambling on to say this: I don’t want to be one-dimensional, and I don’t want to be this reliant on the services and goods of a throw-away society. In the coming months I will share with you my personal journey of how I am implementing plans to change these things in my own life. I hope that I can inspire others to do the same. We need to change our culture. We need to reignite the traditions and industriousness of our past while embracing and using the technology of today. We need to be able to fight, defend and heal one another. We need to be strong and healthy. But we also need to be able to build, repair, create and grow what we need as well. We need balance. This is how you truly develop your power, and ultimately how we collectively take our power back. 

Concealed Carry Podcast interview

Posted on by

This week I was interviewed by Riley over at the Concealed Carry Podcast. We discussed my latest book, Beyond OODA, and I had the chance to expand some concepts from the book during the conversation.

This was the first broadcast from my new office/work studio in Daytona Beach, which I have been working feverishly to complete so I can start creating new content after the move to the coast. Happy to be getting up and running again.

A Writer’s Pilgrimage

Posted on by

This week I journeyed out for a pilgrimage that has been over 25 years in the making and covered 1300 miles. There’s quite a backstory, so here goes:

Beginnings

Somewhere around twenty-five years ago, I was a troubled young man sitting in the “hole”, a solitary confinement metal cell that measured about 7′ x 5′ x 8′ with a 4′ fluorescent light that stayed on twenty-four hours a day. I had been in there for a few months maybe, having attracted the wrath of the prison’s punitive system for fighting. Fighting was the biggest symptom of my problems as a youth, of course, which led to me serving five years in prison starting as a teen and into my adulthood.

“Warrior first“, 21 years old in the penitentiary 1996

While in that terrible place, the prison inside the prison, I grabbed a random book from the library cart that came to our cells once a week. That book was The Return of the Ragpicker by Og Mandino.

That book had a profound effect on me.

Although it took years to germinate and bear fruit, it’s effect was powerful enough to have me on a 1300 mile journey–a full twenty-five years later–specifically seeking something from it’s pages.

The book was set in the beautiful countryside of New Hampshire, with the story starting right at the end of fall as winter was preparing to settle in. The scenery that Og so eloquently painted with his words took my mind from the horrible place that I was in to the most beautiful place I could imagine.

It awakened in me the more subconscious attachments I had with New England. Having heard stories of how great it was when I lived there with my mother as a child. Those stories were something of a dream since her choice to move back to her hometown in Ohio led to the bleak and tragic life that we ended up living there. In my mind as a kid, New England was the place where our dreams could have came true, almost came true, if we hadn’t left…

Growing up I was just fascinated by the region. It was featured in some of my favorite TV shows, like This Old House and The Yankee Workshop. The big old houses, the quaint towns where life seemed simple; I would watch those shows and imagine having an old house there, with a wood shop and a writing studio. 

It all ties in to my lifelong dream of being a writer. So many great writers came from or lived in New England during their best work, Mr. Mandino being my all-time favorite among them. It always seemed a place that just inspired words to come forth. A place to retreat and create. 

And though I am not a fan of the horror genre, Stephen King was a huge inspiration to me as well. As one of the most successful writers to ever live, nearly all of his writings and subsequent movies were set in New England and vividly featured the region throughout. I was drawn in to it every time and would often watch his movies just to catch a glimpse of that beautiful place. 

You have to imagine that these “dreams” and visions were at a time when the reality of my own life was colored by despair. My upbringing and family life was ransacked by the drug and alcohol addiction and the violence that surrounded me growing up. The lack of drive and absence of creativity in my environment (that seemed to occupy only my mind) left me feeling pretty lost and longing for a different way of life. 

A hidden place

As part of my journey to the “secret” location described by Og in his book, I rode a vintage train through the White Mountain notch region. Og’s explanations of the landscape, with endless rolling hills and mountain views painted with the beautiful colors of the changing seasons all became real as I rode through the same mountains of New Hampshire that he wrote about. 

That same scenery that my mind escaped to all those years ago, was now unfolded right before my eyes, and it was every bit as beautiful as I had imagined. To top it off, I was heading to the magical place where Simon Potter reappeared in Og’s life after 15 years away, just outside of the town of Langville, NH.

Simon was a ragpicker, a mysterious old man that never aged and had a knack for disappearing after things had been set in order. He would show up in someone’s life when they were seemingly at the end of their rope and in despair, and guide them to a better way. He first appeared in Mandino’s The Greatest Salesman in the World, and made his second appearance in the sequel Return of Ragpicker (which I read first). 

Sitting at the literal bottom of despair in the inhumane solitary confinement of a prison, the concept of a Simon Potter was something I wished for in my life. Someone who cared, who offered guidance.

I guess most people get that from their parents or family members, something that just wasn’t available to me. But there is no doubt that if someone had stepped up to a young me all those years ago, things likely would have turned out quite different and better for my life. 

It caused me to want to be that person for other people. To solve my own problems, find my way to a happy, “normal” life and then use that experience to be the one who steps up for the less fortunate. Too many just look down on people and never truly understand the blindness and confusion that poverty and tragic culture creates in those people. So many answers that seem so simple to average folks are just not conceivable to people from the broken parts of our society.

Too many people judge and not enough people care, and I believe that is why eventually we will fracture our society as a whole. I believe we are seeing it happen now. 

It took me 20 years of intense, hard work and literally struggling to climb out of poverty for me to make any headway on my own. I had no inheritance, no guidance and no financial advice. There was no one to co-sign loans for me, or teach me about how to build credit and have nice things. I made so many incredibly costly mistakes and in many ways damaged my life forever along the way. 

But here I am, twenty-five years later, making the pilgrimage largely paid for by my income from writing. I have one successful book out, and I get paid “OK” as a writer of articles for businesses on the internet. I am not rich but I am starting to do the things I dreamed about doing. I am writing, getting paid, and walking in the footsteps of the giants before me. 

The Old Stones

According the the Langville Historical Society, the structure was built in 1817 by the town for the purpose of “pounding” cattle, a practice that is no longer in use. 

After plane rides, hundreds of miles of driving and train rides, I set eyes upon the supposedly fictional place. There it was, in front of me, just how Og had described it nestled in some woods off of Blueberry Road. The fallen stones partially covered by dead oaks and leaves, the walls still nearly four feet high in some places.

Even the entrance was there, just as he described, where the townspeople would lead the animals in and stack some stones to prevent them from leaving. 

How strange to be standing there, inside of an old structure placed together over 200 years ago in some quiet, tiny hidden town in the mountains of New Hampshire. It was very surreal, to see the moss covered stones where Og undoubtedly sat and wrote; where I also now have sat and wrote (part of which would become this short story). 

It’s mid-October and fall is definitely underway here, with the wind loudly swooshing through the trees like a gentle but stern warning of the winter months soon to come. I sat still and listened to it as it blew the orange and golden leaves to the ground all around me. 

What a beautiful day to make this pilgrimage! It was sunny and clear and although fall in New Hampshire, if I wasn’t so acclimated to my Florida home’s weather I would have been comfortable in a T-shirt like the locals. 

The few locals who rode by eyed me with deep suspicion, which I tried to disarm with a friendly wave. It’s very easy to see why Og wanted to protect this place. It is a town of people who like their simple, rugged life up here in the mountains and they don’t want any “flatlanders” coming up here and messing it up. 

The area is presumably much busier than when Og sat there and wrote almost 30 years ago, but the road next to the pound is still not paved and the area is still quite hidden in the edge of the woods. It would be easy to miss for anyone who wasn’t really looking for it.

Sitting there, I almost expected old Simon to appear. I imagined hearing a voice from behind me and turning around to find an old man standing there by the wall. He never did, of course, but it would have been a great time for him to show up! I could use some of his advice right now…

I did imagine Mr. Mandino’s presence there as I touched the stones, and I tried to absorb the hundreds of years of history that these stones have seen in this spot. It’s been a truly inspiring journey. I feel like I completed a circle; like some task I started decades ago has been finished and I can now begin the process of looking back at what I learned during the process. 

The moss covered stones around the entrance to the pound, just as Og had described them 30 years before

Who is Simon?

Simon may not have shown up in the form that Og described him, but perhaps he was there after all. If I go on to do the things that I desire to do, and gain enough success to be able to offer some guidance for those who are navigating deep adversity, perhaps that is Simon living in me. 

I do understand that Mr. Mandino was somewhat of a religious man and that the story of Simon Potter was very Christian at it’s core. I am not any of those things but I can still embrace the meaning and message of the book. Finding the simplest of guidance during the most complex adversities, and then passing that wisdom on to others, this is what we should be called to do. 

It’s nice to come to New England as a writer–though not a very good one in comparison to Og and others. It’s nice to see that some of my dreams have came true. They came true despite the obstacles, the people who didn’t believe in me or my visions, the naysayers who said I should work menial jobs and conform to accept my lot in life. None of that stopped me, nor will it stop me going forward. They came true because I never gave up. Because I believed in goofy things like finding inspiration under the palm trees of Florida, or in the mountains of New England.

Of course, I am still struggling to make it happen. I don’t have an abundance of money, and much of what I get paid to write about is still not what I really want to write about.

But, we start out writing about what we know and unfortunately that topic for me is violence. That opened doors for me to begin exploring other topics, and this article is an expression of that. Not many writers make a living wage from their writing, so I am already successful in some very low-percentile ways. 

What happened this week was a synchronicity of deep events that developed over many lives, many miles and many decades.  In the next day or so I’ll leave the mountains and head to the Northeast coastline, which I will follow up to Maine for my last few days. Then back home to Florida, the other place that I am in love with.

Note: Don’t bother looking up Langville, NH. It doesn’t exist. From Og Mandino himself:

“Please waste none of your precious time searching any New Hampshire map for the town of Langville, the setting for this book, because you will seek in vain. Out of respect for the proud, stubborn, and hard-working Yankee townspeople who have a tough enough time tolerating “summer folks,” much less “curiosity seekers,” I have altered the descriptions of all easily identifiable landmarks as well as changed the name of that lovely green and granite hamlet that is the locale of my story.”

I found it, Og. After 25 years, I found it. I quietly visited, paid homage, and didn’t leave a trace. 
 

Security in an era of Violence

Posted on by

So, it’s been an eventful weekend here in the U.S. The presence of guns, as predicted, has escalated to even more shots going off- some intentional, some not, all are equally dangerous. While I would love to write another pleasant lifestyle story about me learning to trim horse hooves or my journey to re-open my training gym, here I am compelled to write about the pressing issue of the clear escalation of violence in our nation today…

I’ll start this post off by stating that I am not here to pick sides in any of these arguments. My business is safety, health and security, and my perspective is solely based on those goals. I caution all of my readers to think objectively and to stay firmly in line with your personal mission in life. Don’t get dragged into an emotional fight unnecessarily.

Armed protester shot to death in Austin

The guy in the attached video was shot to death not long after this, his last interview ever.

A few points to remember:

  • Don’t show up strapped unless you’re ready to lay it all down.
  • Any time you open the door to violence, you don’t get to pick who comes out at you, and you can’t put them back in once they’re out.

Details are unclear, but it appears that a vehicle attempted to drive through the protest and this man approached the vehicle with his rifle. He got shot to death by the occupant of the vehicle.

It’s interesting to listen to the deceased mother talk about what an amazing human being her son was. While this may or not have been true, the reality is he showed up at a protest openly armed and that means he invited conflict, whether he truly realized that or not. An unnecessary conflict ended in death, and that’s what happens when you venture out into the public posturing with weapons and “standing your ground”.

Protests, Weapons and “militias”

In other news, an estimated 350 armed NFAC militia members descended on Louisville, KY. This is notably a significant number AND a significant distance away from their home base in Atlanta, GA.

They had a negligent discharge and injured their own members. While not surprising, it shows how dangerous they really are, both in terms of open carrying locked and loaded weapons and in the fact that they are careless enough to accidentally kick something off if not deliberately.

This same group showed up just as strong at a confederate monument in Georgia and were seen harassing drivers at gun point earlier this month. 

It’s important to remember that a lack of training or discipline is in no way a reduction in the dangerousness of any individual or group. From 95-pound rice farmers in Vietnam, to illiterate goat herders in rural Afghanistan, all the way to teenage Somali children emerging from grass huts with AK’s in Africa, hundreds of thousands of souls have been laid to rest at the hands of determined, scared and angry untrained fighters.

We are entering a new era, ladies and gentlemen. Prepare yourselves, and always act in line with your mission.

Self-defense and staying safe

Here are a few tips to keep yourself safe in the coming months in the ongoing destabilization of our country.

  • Establish your mission with complete clarity. If your mission is to keep yourself and your loved ones safe so you can live out a happy, long life together, simply stick to that and don’t go seeking out conflict over some arbitrary principles. Know your mission and let that guide your choices always. For more on “mission” and how to recognize and prepare for extreme violence, check out my book Violence of Mind.
  • Avoid mob violence by avoiding mobs. Don’t show up at protests and your likelihood of having a violent altercation or of being injured as a bystander to one will diminish to pretty much zero.
  • Keep an eye on what is happening in your area as well as in any area you will be traveling to. Avoidance doesn’t happen by accident, it must be a deliberate effort. Protests and violence are popping up all over the country and you have to be proactive to avoid it. Places to look would be local reddit threads, local Facebook groups and Snap Maps, to name a few. Find ways to quietly watch active groups on all sides of the divisions in your area.
  • If you are caught in a mob situation, find the fastest way with the least resistance to the nearest exit out of the situation. If you choose to “stand your ground” or plow through the protest, people (including you and anyone with you) can and will be in great danger. Act accordingly.
  • Angry mobs are easily incited. It’s the proverbial “powder keg” that only needs a match. Don’t be the match. Yes, it may anger you. You may even feel threatened. Remember the rules of self-defense: Don’t initiate or escalate any conflict, avoid and evade whenever safely possible, defend yourself effectively and justifiably when you have exhausted all other avenues of avoidance and are left with no other choice when presented with a clear threat that shows the means, opportunity and intent to do serious harm.
  • Keep a cool head. Don’t allow yourself to be dragged down into the psychological swamp of division and hatred getting pushed by all major media outlets and platforms. If you feel yourself having an emotional reaction to a headline or social media post, STOP yourself right there and re-take control of your thoughts. Remember, the foundation of an effective combat mindset is self-control under all conditions. The minute you allow an outside stimulus to anger or excite you from a remote distance, you are forfeiting control of your emotions and decision making, and you will compromise your mission to failure.
  • Have the provisions for both self-defense and self-treatment for medical emergencies. Don’t get caught without a means to equal forces and defend yourself against armed or numerous attackers. Likewise, have the equipment to self-treat yourself and others in the event that someone is seriously injured and you need to buy time to get them to primary care. A CAT tourniquet and a few trauma medical “stop the bleed” supplies is a minimum requirement.
  • Seek out training. Take it seriously. If you haven’t done so yet, you are behind the curve. Training with your firearm is only part of the equation. You should be taking care of your fitness and strength. You should be seeking out force-on-force training like my upcoming class in Okeechobee, FL August 23, or my shoothouse based class in Alliance, Ohio in October, to gain the experience of simulated gunfights, learning how to deal with fast, complex problems when lethality is the consequence.

I am deeply disturbed by the condition of the world we are living in today. From the devastation and confusion surrounding the cornonavirus pandemic, to the destabilization caused by violent protests and growing group clashes, this world is just not in good shape right now. I would personally much rather live in a world where we are all working towards greater things, in our own lives and for the world around us.

But we are not in that world right now. We have to continue to try our best to live good lives and impact the world in positive ways, but we also have to prepare for the worst and deal with reality accordingly. While I sincerely hope that we can get ourselves back on track and out of the path of mass casualty violence, it doesn’t appear that we will be able to do that anytime soon.

Prepare accordingly. Clarify your mission and stick to it in all decisions. One way or another, I will work to see the good in us victorious on the other side of this.

Reflecting on four years of change

Posted on by

Yesterday was a typical weekend day here in Florida: I hiked in the forest to a hidden lake with my daughter and my Great Dane. We had a picnic by the lake and hiked some more. Then we went home and got the Road King out and took a ride into the National Forest to do some swimming in the beautiful springs of the forest. I floated around under the palm trees on a huge pink flamingo, swam with my daughter, and then we rode back through the forest on a beautiful sunny afternoon and headed back to the farm for dinner.

Laying on that float, I did some reflecting:

Two years ago this week, I was quietly packing my things to move 1000 miles away to Florida. I didn’t tell anyone, aside from the one friend who had to help me pack and swore an NDA to not tell a soul.

I had finally made some strong decisions in my life. First, I was never going to let anyone abuse me again in any relationship–girlfriend, wife, family member, boss, co-worker–no one. I decided that a peaceful life in solitude is better than a tormented life in servitude.

I also made the decision to put my own health and wellness first, above relationships, jobs or projects. Having been a fitness professional and at least a part-time athlete for much of my life, I knew better.

But I was misled into believing that “being responsible” meant sacrificing your own health and wellness to accomplish external (usually financial) goals. That could not be more incorrect. If you are not strong and healthy, everything you put forth diminishes. It’s just how it is.

All this had gone on for a year and a half before the move to Florida, so I had a good head start. In that time, I accomplished a lot, including publishing my first book (and it was very successful for a self-published work).

I also took ownership of my own story, choosing to embrace who I am and take the power away from those who would use my story against me. No more hiding my past. It’s mine. If you don’t like it, then go away, I don’t need you.

I didn’t tell anyone about my plans to move because my mind was made up, and there was no reason to listen to all of the reasons why it wouldn’t work, or that I would be back, on and on ad nauseam.

People are always quick to tell you how something you want to do or some idea you have will not work. I knew to just not even give them the chance.

Now, for two years, they’ve watched me through social media living a pretty good life in the sun down here in the FL. I live on a few acres out in the country, with my horse, my dog, and now my oldest daughter.

Like anyone else, I have some problems, and I struggle still with rebuilding my life after divorce, custody battles, and a life of mistakes and hardships.

I fought an intense custody battle for the past year and a half for my two daughters, against a woman I have been divorced from for 13 years now, and ultimately got to have my oldest with me full-time for her entire senior year of high school, which was worth every bit of it.

That battle put a damper on my financial health, and also on my business with my being emotionally drained and distracted for much of 2019. I wasn’t able to finish the next 3 books I’m working on in that time, either. I lost my youngest daughter for a second time, which was one of the three hardest losses I’ve felt in my life. I suffered it all quietly, in peaceful solitude.

But here’s the difference now: I cut off the patterns. I cut off the toxic people. I cut off the neglect of my own heart, mind and body. All of my problems today, are residual from a life of bad decisions, and they are one-by-one being eliminated and cleaned up. Not one significant problem I have today was created solely and independently in the last 4 years. After 40 years, I finally stopped the madness.

And I waited.

I waited for the right people to come into my life. I did not settle. Not for friends, not for work, and not for a companion. I didn’t let loneliness drive me into bad relationships, or to hang out where I would simply be around people without regard to what type of people they really were.

I didn’t hang out with people or be “friends” with people just because it could help my business or career. In fact, choosing not to do so hindered my career growth in many ways. But that’s ok…

I was patient. I created my standards, and no matter how high or seemingly unattainable they were, I stuck to them, resigned to a life of peaceful solitude if they could not be met.

That patience paid off. I may not be wealthy, and could even be considered financially poor by some standards, but my actual life is pretty dreamy. I wake up on a beautiful piece of property in rural Central Florida.

The sun is almost always shining, I walk out into my yard and am greeted by my faithful dog, and my beautiful mare, an American paint, in my pasture (who happens to be quite an amazing horse). The birds are almost always singing. The neighbors have horses and goats and small cattle that border my fence line. I’m surrounded by wildlife, nature, animals.

Within a 1.5 hour drive I have both coasts of Florida, beaches, springs, rivers, the National Forest and several State Parks full of amazing beauty. There’s also the cities, theme parks and lots of attractions if I’m in the mood for that. I have a few Harleys, and live where riding weather is year round and great.

I have my outside gym platform, sufficient equipment, a firepit, and I can sit in my yard and never see a neighbor. I coach in the evenings at the most awesome Crossfit/weightlifting gym in the region helping people improve both through Crossfit and Olympic Weightlifting.

I also run my own remote coaching business with several great clients who work hard, which allows me to watch them develop into stronger, healthier humans.

I am well into my life-long dream of making a living as a writer, with a successful book and some other lucrative writing deals going. I largely make my own schedule and my time is owned by me.

Most of all, I am cultivating relationships with some great people; people of amazing quality that I previous thought didn’t even exist. Comparing the people I meet now–after spending years to turn life around and focus on living my own quality life–to the people I used to meet on my path before, it just really blows my mind.

Relationships like this were unattainable to me in my prior mindset. It took real change to make this happen, and that change was not easy or quick. It’s not that I was a bad person or doing bad things, I just hadn’t understood the difference between true motivation and surface presentation, and how important it is to clearly know that difference both in yourself and in others.

Here’s what I have learned four years later:

A peaceful life in solitude is always better than a tormented life in servitude.

Your health and wellness have to come first, it is the foundation for all things you want to be or do in this life.

A peaceful life of solitude focused on health and wellness cultivates you into a high quality person, and will lead you to attract high quality people into your life.

Patience is the way to true fulfillment. This is true for self-development as much as it is for skill development and even for finding fulfilling relationships.

Your real motivations, and the real motivations of others, are exposed through the totality of actions. See what is there, and you will be able to make great decisions with good outcomes.

Anything worth having will take patience, work, fortitude, incredible amounts of faith, planning, spontaneity, pain, joy, fear, courage, and every other strength or skill that you can muster. We have to earn the great things in life, and we have to be strong enough to cultivate and maintain them. The universe has a way of doling out what we earn. If you don’t control what you earn in this life, someone else will, and it will not be pleasant.

And last but not least, Florida is beautiful and fun and I am not leaving any time soon.

I share this reflection with my readers to offer both some insight and encouragement. You can change your life, and if you want it to change, YOU have to do it.

That faith word got a seemingly passing mention in this article, but believe me it is at times the only thing you will have to go on. You will need it. Faith in yourself and faith in God, or the universe. The rest is hard work and the willingness to fight for what you want.

Fighting isn’t always forceful or violent. In fact, the hardest battles are the ones that go on in quiet, lonely solitude. I’ve suffered some great injustices in my life, many before I was even old enough to understand. This led to many mistakes on my part. But today, I am in control.

Be strong, cultivate your faith, raise your standards and don’t stop moving forward and growing. You’ll get there. If I can travel the great distance I did to get here, surely you can cover the distance that sits in front of you.

Helping others

Posted on by
This past Sunday I had a great, sold out pistol class in Okeechobee. This class had a lot of new faces that I had never met before, and a few things really set in on me while I was teaching it…
 
The class had a good amount of beginners in it. For a few it was actually their first real training course, while some others were still working off of 15 to 30 year old government/law enforcement training (that probably had not been practiced in that time gap).
 
There was also a wide spectrum of gear, from unacceptable holsters that I had to immediately remove from the range for safety reasons before we even started, to Serpa’s and other subpar examples. There were also some very tuned up shooters in the course with tricked out Glocks and solid gear to run them with.
 
After spending some time working in the training industry at a national level (traveling throughout the year to teach, attending SHOT Show and NRAAM, training at national level events like OTOA, working for companies in the industry, etc.) I’ve seen the spectrum of students and instructors from the local levels to the widely known popular level.
 
One of the things that sticks out to me is how the level of student can change the more well known you get. It’s like a hierarchy, and the higher you are in popularity the more you can charge, the more you charge the more “serious” the students become, and so on.
 
At that level, “the industry” (everyone who considers themselves “in the know” about gear, weapons, training and tactics and falls into similar choices and beliefs) gets pretty harsh in their views of the average gun owner. If you are on social media, which seems to be where “the industry” actually lives, you will no doubt run into this harsh attitude.
 
Name calling and shaming for weapon and gear choices, making fun of people for being poor (“the poors” as they call them) and just a general negative attitude towards anyone who is not at least making a good attempt at being in the cool club is pretty much the norm.
 
Don’t get me wrong, I do get it. The gun world is full of absolute bullshit. The NRA, the glossy magazines and the TV shows all pump out garbage information about garbage guns and gear and the masses eat it up because they don’t know any better. In fact, they believe it is good information because all of those named sources are actually the most well funded and best looking sources out there. I mean, they’re on TV, right?
 
So, we have this general gun culture that is at best misguided and misinformed on a large scale. It is a problem. I am saying this after years of working in gun stores, working at public ranges, working for holster manufacturers and other companies in the industry as well as running my own training company for many years. (To the NRA, the magazines, the gun shows on TV, the manufacturers, you ARE the problem.)
 
Many of the people at my class this weekend would fall into those categories of dislike: less than optimal gun choices, a lack of fundamental skills like grip and trigger press, beliefs in myths about gunfighting and, especially when it came to gear and holsters, it was a serious struggle.
 
I even had one contraption calling itself a “belly band” that was basically an oversized Ace bandage with no velcro and a patch sewn into it to “hold” a gun. (If you make such a contraption and sell it to the public to carry guns around, you should be absolutely fucking ashamed of yourself, whoever you are.) It literally hit the top of my list as the worst holster ever seen with my own eyes.
 
To the guy’s credit, he immediately recognized that his rig was unsafe and told me it was not going to be suitable for the course, so he did recognize his poor choice just by being exposed to the introduction of the course in the morning.
 
It took some of the others a few hours of struggling with gear failures to get the idea that their choices were not only poor for training, but that such failures in a life or death situation on the street would be catastrophic.
 
I was patient. I was helpful. I kept the class safe. If something was unsafe, it was not permitted to be used. The failures that did happen, were well within the safety margin so I let them happen for their educational benefit. I didn’t attack anyone. I didn’t shame them.
 
I did my best to balance the class out and deliver the goods to everyone who showed up, no matter their skill level. People learned on Sunday, and when I asked the question at the end of the day, “Did you feel like I provided a safe and comfortable training environment for you today?” It was a quick and resounding “Yes!” that followed.
 
I ended up with this group for a few reasons. I am not established yet in Florida locally, so I am attracting new people into the fold by design and that is a good thing. Another reason is because the course was intentionally priced very affordably. My overhead is lower because I am a short drive away, and I want to build the type of local training culture that I had successfully built in Ohio for so many years.
 
I am intentionally declining more and more opportunities to travel and teach, opting to stay close to home for my family now. So, I end up with beginners, newbs, bad gear, and all that comes with them.
 
All I could think about at certain points throughout the day is how interesting it is that I have traveled full circle to come back to where I started: teaching average people how to be safe and effective with the guns they carry.
 
Average people. People who do not eat, sleep and breath training. People who work jobs, raise families, have hobbies, who do not live on social media talking about grip stippling, flashlights and triggers for the 57,000th time. I was very happy to see these people showing up for a course. I am happy to be of service.
 
I am happy to be of service because that is why I am here. To help people. I did not become a firearms instructor because I thought it was going to be super awesome, or because I want to be some famous instructor guy. I sure as hell don’t do it because it’ll make me rich, because it definitely will not. I started out doing it because I saw bad things happening and I wanted to fix it as much as I could.
 
I saw cavalier attitudes with little experience to back them up, macho personas based on purely bad information, and flashy bullshit based on just plain garbage (the days of plate carriers at “pistol” classes comes to mind).
 
I saw good people trying to be prepared to defend themselves and stay out of the cemetery or prison while doing it, and they were being fed information that would lead them directly to those places.
 
That is why I started this, and that is why I still do it.
 
As I make my long talked about and planned for partial exit from the industry, I look to maintain my ability to help the average people who are genuinely looking for help. I intend to teach a limited number of courses annually.
 
I have very little interest in making the cool club person feel “cooler” by having attended my course. I have very little interest in working with someone who is looking to shave that next 2/10ths of a second off of their Bill Drill time. Not only is it not my lane, but it’s not what I prioritize in fighting and self defense. Glory seekers will not find satisfaction in my classes.
 
That is where the most money is. But unfortunately, it’s not where the greatest need is. The greater good is served by welcoming more good people into the fold of the knowledgable and trained populace, and eliminating the dangerous misguided information that saturates the concealed carry population as a whole.
 
I have also found over the years that many professional students who think they are really tuned up are nothing more than great shooters. This is because there is still a shortage of classes about fighting, and a ton of classes about shooting.
 
At best you can work your way up to CQB courses, which are limited to working inside of structures and largely founded on team-based military or law enforcement doctrine. Solo foundational fighting knowledge is hard to pass on in a one or two day course, and even harder to find someone attempting to do it.
 
If my course is “open” enrollment without prior training requirements, you are welcome to make it your first training course. Those who are “tuned up” are also welcome to attend. You will see the foundational levels of how I prioritize what is important in fight training.
 
If my course lists having “developed fundamental skills and equipment choices” as a requirement to attend, then you should not show up unless you clarify with me directly that you are where you will need to be.
 
It was no shocker to me to get these students of course, because it was a no pre-requirement course. I am just happy that I have retained the ability and humility to be able to help these people raise their skills and equipment to be safer in their defense plans.
 
I will still run advanced level courses, as well as my favorite: the application-approved-only limited spot courses where I take 6 hand picked people out and we go hard on a specific skillset or procedure. There is no money in that, I do it because I love it.
 
I don’t have any tolerance or time for shithead people who think they know something, that they actually have no idea about, and they are unwilling to learn any different.
 
I have all the time in the world for the average person who doesn’t know any better, but they are genuinely out there trying to learn what they don’t know and improve their position.
 
As I go forward, progressively I want training to be something I do because I enjoy it and because I enjoy helping people, not something I do to strictly for money. It has a higher purpose than that for me.
 
 

 

Writing your life into your fitness programming

Posted on by

Dealing with life events that “disrupt” programming is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome in a fitness routine. Time consuming work projects, travel, vacations, family and other intermittent life demands all have a way of knocking you off of that “perfect” workout groove you’ve been trying so hard to stay in.

Here’s a way of looking at it from a programming standpoint that can help keep you on track by actually turning these temporary situations into opportunities rather than disruptions. 

Programming is not just a static workout plan

Programming, in its most effective form, is individualized. The best program is not only one that is written specifically for you, but one that constantly evolves as you change physically and psychologically, and as your life changes around you.

If you are paying a trainer or a coach, hopefully they are listening to you and asking the right questions to take all of that into consideration while guiding that evolution towards optimizing the results of your efforts. 

Listening to, recording in detail and then synthesizing the information from your workout performance, your results and your life are the best practices that separate high-level programming from the rest of what’s out there. If you are self-coaching, you need to be doing these practices. 

This includes taking into consideration vacations or travel that will remove access to your regular gym/equipment/schedule, as well as any psychologically stressful events in your life and how they affect your drive and susceptibility to fatigue.

For many, sticking to a program and not missing the workouts, meals, and rest required for success is a huge struggle even when everything else is going right in their lives. Throw a change in that pattern and it’s extremely easy to “fall off the wagon” and lose your momentum.

It can take weeks to get back on track, only to have something else come up the following month and here we go again…

Disruption vs Microcycle vs Back-off Week

If you are like most normal people, this will sound familiar to you. Jobs, kids, taxes, life…they all can be emotionally stressful and cause real fatigue, if not keep you from getting to the gym at all.

Much of the internet would yell, “Power through it!” or “No crybabies!” But this just is not always practical or even safe. Not considering fatigue in its these forms can push you into dangerous territory resulting in injury or burnout if you “just power through it.” And sometimes, you just can’t get to the gym as planned.

There is a better way. 

Instead of viewing these events as disruptions, we need to look at them as opportunities to work in microcycles (single week plans) or back-off weeks (rest microcyles) that can optimize and sometimes supercharge your results and performance. 

For example, last month one of my online personal coaching clients had two “disruptions” coming up in his schedule. He had been working very hard for about three months uninterrupted and was disappointed and very worried that these events would set him back. This posed a real threat to his progress, as well as a psychological threat to his motivation.

The first event was a 4 day conference that involved travel and a hotel stay. This, of course, basically knocked out a week of his time. The second event was the physically and psychologically stressful task of moving out of his apartment and into a new space. These events were spaced with only one week in between them. 

Where he saw worry and disruption, I saw an opportunity. We programmed a very light week for him during the travel utilizing the hotel gym just two nights, reverting back to some hypertrophy and maintenance intensity and volume levels.

This allowed him to focus on his conference, network with associates, and have a much needed rest from what had been an unbroken eight week mesocycle of moderate intensity and volume work. It also served the purpose of preventing the emotional stress of feeling like he was sliding backwards (this is very important). 

We used that time to prepare him for a maximum effort week that would fit perfectly in between two weeks of being off program.   

The following week, we set a maximum effort goal for a microcycle (one week) of high intensity/high volume. It was perfect timing for a test of strength, work capacity and will power, and an awesome way to kickstart his mind back into feeling motivated about his progress, even though he had “missed” a week of regular programming. 

That week he produced the highest numbers of his life. He was well rested, he felt good about his work, and lifted an astounding 42,600lbs of tonnage for the week. His usual tonnage prior to the trip was just under 30,000lbs.

This obviously took a lot out of him, which created the perfect time to take a week off and get that functional movement and cardio work of moving his household items to his new place. He still managed to get to the gym that week once as well, making up a great active rest week. 

Upon returning to the mesocycle phase, he is putting up numbers that are 15% higher than before the three weeks of back-off/max effort/rest, and doing it at the same perceived exertion.

This is success. He feels great. Not only did we not lose momentum, but we were able to write his life events into his programming in a way that actually maximized his results during that time period.

This produced great results emotionally and psychologically as well, turning what would have been a negative situation into a very positive one. This will work for functional training or sports specific training cycles just as well as it worked for his strength training cycle. 

Thus we see, under good coaching, “disruptions” don’t have to exist as much as you may think. They are merely back-off weeks or focused microcycles that need to be written into the program to extract maximum value from what is available. Any good programs will have back-off weeks written into them. A little bit of adjustment in a program goes a long way toward creating a positive out of a negative. 

The trick is to plan ahead as much as possible using naturally occurring life events to implement them. Sometimes this has to be done on the fly and can’t always follow the pre-planned schedule. Use it in your program and it will push progress forward rather than slow it down or stop it.  

You may even be able to work a little harder when you realize how often life forces in rest days and back-off weeks where you did plan them. More rest can allow for higher intensities and volume in your program. 

Instead of fighting the realities of life to fit a “cookie cutter” program, we can use our real schedule and results data to optimize our program to come out even better in the end. Just a few things to think about.