Clint Emerson - The Right Kind of Crazy & 100 Deadly Skills on BIDS

this is clint emerson and this is the break it down live show that's right we're live here on the break it down with um you know so one of the things just just for purposes of background i've got a lot of combat time you've been outside the wire probably as much as anybody you know so i don't want to put the letterman jacket on and talk too much about that stuff because you know we do other things now i don't know how long it's been since you've been you know deployed somewhere but for me it's coming up on 10 years here pretty quick so uh you know which is what i guess to say that we also can reference back but let's try to avoid a lot of that um back in the teen days kind of stuff because you know you've talked about that in a lot of places let's talk a little bit about i guess i'm curious what your thoughts are with regards to the election i don't want to get political but just in terms of we don't know what's about to happen right and guys like us are thinking you know do i have my ammo do i have my go bag you know what what am i going to do extra protocols when we go to the goddamn store you know so what does it look like for someone like you who has focused his most of his life on security and preparedness and all that kind of thing we have such a big unknown we literally have no idea who's going to win the election read two articles you get two different outcomes yeah it is odd and uh it should be a pretty interesting uh week right so the next couple of days i mean i don't know what it is i it's like i for me personally i can't stand this part of you know every four year cycle um and but at the same time i'm addicted to it like right you want to see you know which states are blue which ones are red and you know there's some entertainment and all that um certainly the debates have been entertaining and both candidates have their way of you know doing what they do um but yeah as far as like preparedness and all that i mean it's been you know let's see you know just kind of backing up to what you're talking about it's been i've been retired for five years right we're still doing like you know odd and contract work you know from time to time and still do just to maintain clearances and all that kind of stuff but um but yeah for the most part five years since a real deployment and uh just hanging out doing preparedness trying to get people to be more proactive preemptive with how they think along with how they you know put things together whether it's in their vehicle their home or you know at their desk at work if they ever go back to work so it's been uh that's kind of been you know eating up the past five years of my time and uh i enjoy it it's fun um but as far as you know i i put out a a an illustr all my books are illustrated so i put out an illustration the other day of how to survive the election and so one was all right go bury your head in the sand until it's done you know which isn't a bad idea um get completely just shit-faced that's that's one opportunity that you could take and just get through it all um you know they had some other stuff that were pretty general but you know just tongue-in-cheek ways of dealing with this thing but i think overall um there's a lot of like you know whoever wins there's gonna be fires everywhere and social unrest and you know i think we thought the same thing um the last go-around and there was a lot of that talk going on and you know it was pretty calm i think overall you've got to be prepared not paranoid um take you know the proper steps to making sure that you and your family are safe and you've uh you know you've kind of thought about everything at least once or twice but i think for the most part this country is somewhat civilized enough not to go crazy and if it does then just make sure you've got you know certain things in place so that you get through it okay i'm often asked these kind of questions you know because my background and i know you must get this a lot but these some of these scenarios there is just no good answer you know like if you're driving to go from a to b and then something's in between like uh your car gets mobbed by a bunch of people you know you can't just drive over everybody what can you do i literally when you find yourself approaching a situation where all of a sudden you are mobbed by somebody you know or something like that i mean for most people they don't go anywhere near the unrest right you're able to avoid it without even being aware that it's even a threat but what does someone do when they find themselves in an impossible situation where all of the options look terrible that's a good question and uh you know i've talked about a couple of times i mean if you're on foot uh you know a big thing with with any of these events especially if you know we all know that social unrest is emotionally charged when emotions are involved irrational logical thought goes out the window and people just act so knowing that you stay away if you find yourself on the perimeter of it then go the opposite direction go perpendicular to which the flow of traffic is moving if you find yourself in the middle of it then immediately you've got to start identifying your outs you know how can i get to the perimeter um move with the flow don't go against the grain because that's not going to do you any good and then skirt your way to the perimeter so that then you can go perpendicular i have a rule of putting you know you put two city streets between you and the social unrest you know and then you can kind of reassess and make sure you're safe um when you're in the middle of it you know keeping your hands up right non-compliant are you more of a compliant negotiator stance you shuffle your feet big thing about keeping hands up is prevent any of that suffocation type injuries where you get crushed crushed injuries identify the walls the barricades and the dead ends and don't go near them uh also the invisible threshold between the people and law enforcement stay away from it even though you're a good person stuck in the middle of something you have to assume they're going to hit you over the head thinking that you're a protester so just stay away from all those law enforcement thresholds walls barricades all of that right so now if you're driving when you take a right and all of a sudden you're surrounded by a bunch of people like you said you can't do you know the walking dead move and try and start running people over that'll do you no good get you thrown in jail real quick so you have to just keep it slow and steady i believe that you've got to keep a little bit of that momentum going remember you are a three four sometimes even a six thousand pound vehicle um you have the advantage regardless of what's going on outside keep the wheels moving even if it's slow it's just a creep and then try to get off that street as quickly as possible personal experience i was overseas during the height of the arab spring and that's when the muslim community basically just kind of went you know uh went into very much of a um revolution if you will in every major country uh over there and i took a wrong turn and ended up in you know surrounded by a thousand plus people that were angry emotionally charged um i was in my vehicle and you know i was surrounded the car was tipping from driver's side wheels to passenger they were trying to tip the thing over and i for me i saw what i call a set of sympathetic eyes they this guy that had a ak-47 slung over his shoulder the look in his eyes was that he felt for me he felt for that position i was in and so i gave him the international sign of uh peace which is this money right money yes you want money come on over here and he's like okay so he went to the passenger door he held his ak-47 at the crowd near that door which created a nice bubble you know of space i let him in the vehicle not knowing exactly how this was going to go yes all i had was you know i had a pistol that's it right that i'm not even supposed to have so so he gets in and then i'm like point that gun out the windshield so he puts it up at the windshield and uh and then that just opened up the street so that i could just go and uh oddly enough you know you go two blocks down you take a left you go another two blocks there was a gas station we pulled in there and you could hear the birds tweeting you know what i mean like it was like there was nothing going on so it's amazing what creating space will do for you as it relates to safety and security and on top of that a little bit of cash in your pocket look for those sympathetic guys and get yourself out of there whatever it takes i paid him he went on his way um and you know that was that so some of those some of those same principles obviously apply if you find yourself in that situation things that i didn't have because i just i literally just landed so my cell phone was dead uh i didn't have sim cards yet for that area you know i mean so a lot of lessons learned out of that luckily i had cash i had a gun um but you know the rest was just adapting to that situation and hopefully making good decisions good decisions under stress which you know is never a good idea you should always just us talking about this putting it into your listener viewer minds now they'll think about it just by thinking about it it makes you ten times more effective if something does happen that's why i always tell people like think through all the different scenarios that could potentially happen when you're sitting in your car at a red light when you're sitting in that restaurant when you're going into the grocery store when you go to get your coffee when you come back home and you're in your driveway you know all those points of attack it's always good just take a second think about what you would do if something happened and you'll be better off for it yeah i guess i would say too like know where a consulate or an embassy is if you're in another other country because if you are in a situation and you have to do something drastic like drive through a crowd you don't want the local authorities to put your hands on you you know and maybe you can't get to one but there are there are points where there are only bad options and obviously try to avoid that and i think it's so smart that that separation from conflict is is can be fast and if if you know they talk about flight or flight but freeze oftentimes is a very appropriate response too like take an extra couple of seconds and decide you know if you are going to fly which direction is the best is it parallel is it is it opposite direction it's it's great council yeah yeah no doubt uh i wanted to ask about so you know especially for guys like us it's really easy to go from being you know aware situationally to hyper vigilant and then because it's really hard to limit that right like you'd be kind of kind of a runaway train and all of a sudden you start to see things that aren't there i mean look as a as a spy you know by peers it would be like i'm being followed right now like are you are you really being followed you know like i keep seeing the same people like really are you like why in the world is someone following a training kid you know at a basic level course we're not talking a high-end course here we're talking you know basic level course right why is someone following you but they believe it in their mind they're so hyper vigilant that they lose contact with reality how does one avoid that how do you how do you know how to limit when it's like it's okay to just take any seat in the restaurant you don't have to sit in the perfect seat right yeah i think uh i always say i think the words situational awareness is overused but under utilized right we talk about it all the time but nobody really breaks it down so that it's easily digestible and makes sense for everyone you know i think our brains are not computers they cannot aggregate all the information in any given environment put it in little folders and then send you alerts when one of those a threat is standing in front of you it just doesn't work that way so i tell people all the time you know to balance hyper vigilance all it goes about like knowing what you're going to look for before you walk out the door so if you're in an area if you're an urban environment let's say a downtown congested environment you know you're going to be on foot and it's a lot of foot traffic public transportation and that's the theme of your day and your pattern of life then you already know what the threats are you just have to look for them now instead of trying because the reality is if you if you try to pay attention to everything you actually end up paying attention to nothing right so knowing what the threats are for the area that you're going into ahead of time and then now okay i want to you're basically sensitizing your mind you're kind of recalibrating it whether it's urban area or i'm going out in the middle of nowhere you know okay the pickpocketer versus the mountain lion right so these are the things i'm going to look for i'm going to look you know cautiously consciously feel the bumps going on as i move towards the subway when i'm on the subway i'm feeling those bumps you know it's you're paying attention to the things that relate to that environment vice just trying to look at everything because like i said then you see nothing at all when you try to do that so i think that's number one and controlling that vigilance piece um the other part goes back to what we're anchored to you know is all about running scenarios and making sure that no matter where you're sitting in the restaurant if you can't get the perfect seat that's okay you're just running that you're gonna run the scenario based on what you've got so if if i know that you know you know i just got finished um writing um another hundred deadly skills the combat edition and in it is all different fighting systems right and so what i found interesting and i thought was pretty cool and i'll highlight it here is in the krav maga world the israelis basically break it down is what's in front of you is the green what's to your peripherals is yellow and what's behind you and you can't see is the red zone right so green yellow red and you run it like a stop light and so your goal is to eliminate the space in the red zone so let's say i can't get my back against a wall okay well maybe on my table is off the wall and there's a set of people between me and them that's okay now i've identified all right i've got that little bit of gap in my red zone i feel like i'm pretty good because when i look behind me every time i look behind me i've turned that into a green zone so your goal is keep your head on a swivel and try and create as many green zones as you can without looking like a nut job so it's uh but there there's a lot of cool systems out there that i think everyone should know about the ooda loop we've all heard about that one you know that one certainly applies to trying to get inside your adversary's mind and what he is going uh to do um you've got you know cooper's colors it's been around for years but the problem is i couldn't tell you what the difference between you know red and oranges right now yeah like sometimes when you color code things you lose sight of what what good and what's bad out of all the colors um but you know bottom line is is you've got to keep your mind in the game but give yourself the parameters so that you're not you know paranoid or crazy yeah yeah well let's continue on this theme one of the things i like about the krav maga style is that if you do end up in a physical confrontation you know it's bottom fish to the nose to smash their nose thumb to the back of the eye socket so they don't want to fight anymore you know if it's if it's a gun then you use the gun if it's a garbage can you use that you end the fight as quickly as possible because you don't want to be an extended fight but before that all that other you know all of that escape stuff still applies when you're running around you know day-to-day life what would you say like your level of operational uh like how close are you ready to trigger are you like at a two are you at eight like how do you walk around day-to-day life if you go to the mall and there's all these variables and everything where do you sit in terms of not readiness but like you know what's what's your combat sense level i guess is what i would call it you get what i'm saying yeah yeah i think um there's varying levels based on what is the environment you mentioned like a mall um malls are great just because you can keep your space between you and the people walking you know either in the same direction or the opposite direction i think you know um vice where you might be at a movie theater where you're you know well not these days now we're all forced to have but right no i would say pre-pandemic you know you see the difference between the public transportation scenario and more of an open right or outside mall effect like that you have on the west coast where everything's you know the malls on the west coast don't have ceilings that's how i always describe because now when you come to texas the malls here have ceilings yeah it's too hot there yeah you have to because the weather changes every damn day but you know uh it's uh i think yeah you're for me personally because i i train and everything goes back to training you have to be training uh your mind your skills on a regular basis um and because you do it then your confidence and how you're going to react even if you're caught off guard because that is really what you train to is the worst case scenario is the element of surprise right the element of surprise always exists no matter how prepared you are no matter how trained you are so if you're always training that way based on being caught off guard and surprised now you're sensitized to it to the point where you're probably going to be okay and so because i train it and do it on a regular basis regardless of the environment i really just know that and have a certain level there and i know what i'm carrying you know i know that i i can both both hands are strong hands there is no weak hand strong hand correct both hands are strong my left works just as good with a pistol or a fixed blade as my right does so and because i carry both and i know i'm good if things go really south i know that i've got my tourniquet and some other items to you know as as a recovery tools right um so you think in terms of the preemptive tools you know the action tools and in your your post-crisis type tools and i've got all that stuff i'm about as maxed out as i can be and i know i'm good to go because i train all of that on a regular basis that's about you know that's the extent of it the rest of the time you're just kind of running those scenarios from time to time and making sure you know what you're going to do yeah the last time i went shooting i went with the um just a recently retired green beret for the audience and my buddy johnny walker you probably know johnny and we you know we did things like uh we we played a game of horse was shooting and so you know one of my calls was left hand left eye you know solo you know solo grip because that's not as easy as whatever you do for your home grip and it's funny because you could be wearing the middle of the target out and we're still gonna hit the target but just that practice and then like doing that while walking in place like even if you're at a regular shooting you know shooting place just to walk in place and try to shoot it's it's really hard it's really really hard you know you get your heart rate up and i saw you i saw you talking somewhere else and it's so true like when you get at that heightened state where you're in a reactionary kind of you know act now kind of mode boy fine motor skills are are shot unless you specifically train to do things like change magazines or whatever that stuff's out the door like you're not you're not going to reliably do anything well you're going to drop [ __ ] you wouldn't ever drop yeah no doubt i i yeah you've heard me say i say all the time you know and unless you're an mma guy in your training in a cage eight hours a day then yeah of course your fine motor skills because you're a professional athlete and that's what you do right but for the average person who works a normal job for a living they cannot expect that their fine motor skills are going to operate the same under stress high levels of adrenaline and that's why it's important to at a minimum train those gross motor skills those big muscle groups yeah at least when they func they'll function but you want them to function efficiently with the most power uh and impact as possible for whatever it is you're doing you know the point about the mma guys and you know being a seal or any kind of high-end operator you know it's it's important for people to realize you guys are pros this is what you do for a living you train you go to you go to deploy maybe rest for a little bit and then right back to training it's all the time so for for mom or for dad who's just driving around um what are some just go-to things like you know if something happens like like you can only not master you can only have so many tools at your you know disposal like one of my things i always recommend to my friends is take something big and throw it at the enemy whether it's a potted plant or whatever they have to now deal with that you know a chair flies across the room and it's horrifying you know if you have to get out of the way what are some of those kind of things we're like look you can't be ready for everything just look for these things and respond in this way and then again break contact get away yeah um wow i mean i think everyone needs to and i'm covering this too everyone needs to determine what their non-violent posture is right in your non-violent posture um and tony blauer puts it best and he's also one of the contributors so is really you know your hands in a position that looks innocent it gives you that opportunity to show third parties in video cameras that you are not a threat that you're not the one engaging in anything right but really what this is is a trojan horse right i'm putting my hands up i'm protecting my head right and then if i creep my shoulders up in the middle of that now i'm protecting the knockout triangle in the middle of all this i'm putting one hand closer to my bad guy so that i can do a palm strike or whatever i can follow with a big strong right whether it's palm or fist but i think you determine what your non-violent posture is and then you train it so what i do just something simple like um i have a mirror that when i walk out my house each day um it's like a full body right and um i do my posture and then i go straight to a pistol draw i'll do my posture straight to my blade i do a posture straight to a strike and you just do little reps before you walk out the door each day and the amount of times that we walk out our houses ends up being i mean heck it's it's it's hundreds of reps per day and i would say that you know for person versus person conflict or that potential start doing that integrate that into your day if you're not a person who carries a gun or a knife that's okay just get that what is your non-violent your non-violent posture can be your thumbs hooked in your pants as long as you know that okay my my hand when it's in my pants i can strike a groin super quick from that position right and then now i can go up and do something else but there is no real right or wrong to the non-violent posture it can be this you know like the thinking pose and from here i know that i can you know reach out and hit someone but know what that is train it in a mirror do your reps before you walk out the door and over time by repetitions comes speed and with speed you're putting time on your side time on your side gives you options options increases like you know the survivability piece so now things that you can do that i you know your everyday carry has become very popular right so for me you know i've always got my handgun my fixed blade tourniquet i've got you know the razor blade in my right shoe i've got the handcuff key in my left shoe that's that's pretty much the big stuff i've always got cash and i've got my id and i've got my phone and for comms but at a minimum that's kind of the basics i always tell people build a go bag right have a go bag in your vehicle you can always make sure it's within arm's reach and when i say arms reach that means assume your car is upside down you've been in a horrible accident you can still get to your go bag and that or else it's worthless right so that leaves it limited to your center console if you have a vehicle without a console then when i was overseas i would put it under my seat and then take one strap and hook it around my ankle of my non you know pedal foot or if you're using both feet then you got to take that into consideration that way if you're upside down and i crawl out that thing is going to drag out with me um but let me jump in here and say one more thing too if your car goes upside down how are you gonna get out like i had a race car and you know you could only get out maybe two ways you know if the car was upside down so you had to think through like okay so yeah like when your car is upside down what are your windows and most cars have a shitload of windows but if you're in a cargo van or whatever being able to know how to get out of your vehicle that i mean that's an important consideration oh yeah no doubt i mean you hope that the windows are already broken and it just makes it easy but you have to think okay you know uh the window's not going down how do you break glass it's easier do it with a tool than with your foot and if your foot's up above you you're not going to get to it too well cutting the seat belt there's a lot of considerations but uh you know i think people get the point and the go bag inside really the way i look at it is life support items right yeah so you've got med gear you've got meds if you take meds on a daily or regular basis um it's like a priority piece you've got some water you've got some food you got you know a day or two worth of gear that you know promotes survivability navigation comms obviously like backups for all that but you know it sounds all crazy and paranoid but really i just did a video on youtube like hey you know just the stuff in your junk drawers in your house can build a really good go bag you know people have all this stuff that sits in drawers or sits wherever they never use it just consolidate it all and you'd be surprised on how all that stuff is just sitting around actually becomes great tools when you need it um but yeah those are kind of you know my quick thoughts on all that preparedness piece when especially when you're walking out the door yeah i i like your your day-to-day walking around kit like when i when i was deployed you know as a as an intelligence gatherer my main job was to gather intelligence so my kit was built on that took a while to kind of streamline it right but i didn't need to carry a bunch of extra weight yeah so i carried a leatherman multi-tool you know i carried a strap cutter and i carried backup pens and a notebook you know and then whatever kind of gun i was allowed to carry you know at that time no that was about it because there was usually some kind of um forceful element you know a due to sergeant an nco attached to me that would watch my back for me because my job is focused directly on the person i'm talking to so you know it's it and then if anything i would carry extra ammo for other people you know because that's where my load capacity would be because it doesn't do me any good to carry i know people always say what kind of knife do you carry do you carry a gurkha knife like no i don't need a girl yeah that weight is extra weight like as extra water is it you know extra food you know whatever it's going to be depending on where you're at that that kit that personal day-to-day kit so someone who is in an area where you can't get a concealed carry permit um what are some things that you can carry so that you don't have your actually have to wear cargo pants full of cargo you know so you can actually run a day-to-day life yeah i mean i would always default back to a fixed blade you know um and if you don't want to carry a fixed blade knife because a comfort bill then you can do a folder but let's face it a folding knife is a broken knife if you think about it so um fixed blade is always kind of like go-to um you know you've got to check the blade length for each state and know what you can get away with but that is definitely the way to go um and the reality is too is sometimes when i'm running my different scenarios through my head on what i would do my knife tends to be almost like the primary because it's quicker on the draw than a gun guns have all kinds of legal ramifications as soon as you pull the trigger even if you're right whereas when you defend yourself with a knife that is within legal limits then there's usually less of all the bureaucracy piece because the reality is you can't put those bullets back in the barrel and if you don't have that concealed carry insurance and all this liability stuff then you know you can find yourself in a nightmare civil suit even though you were right um so that's the unfortunate piece uh but there are lots of education lots of ways out there if you carry a gun if you don't okay the fixed blade i always tell people you know skip the mace and go straight to bear spray when you have the opportunity it shoots 30 40 feet it's far more potent it's all natural so it doesn't cause any permanent damage therefore you don't have to worry about the legal issues especially in your home right if you're going to protect the home and you don't have guns then bear spray is great second to that would be like oven cleaner because it's a corrosive and it'll burn people's eyes to the point where they'll be blind for the rest of their life and that would be awesome to do to a bad guy right and since it's in your own home then it's okay but the minute you put that crap in your purse it's a felony in some state so right wasps wasp spray and oven spray and all those those corrosives and stuff you don't let them leave your house is a self-defense weapon so um but you know the other pieces you know that i think are important is um you know regardless of your level of fighting and skills you know you know that if you get to a point where you have to temporarily surrender that's okay knowing that you're gonna stay conscious because you're outnumbered out gunned whatever it is that's going on in front of you the goal is to stay conscious so that you can pay attention to what's going on and also promote escape later and that's where the handcuff key and the razor blade what what but you can't get out of one you can get out with the other um almost guaranteed no matter what the restraint is and um and you always want to try and get away at the first stop don't wait until you get home you want the first stop sign the first stoplight whatever it is that's where you want to go because the real restraints always go on later and that's what you want to avoid um so you know some people are like fight to the death and i'm like okay let's be realistic here based on the average person it might be a temporary surrender so you can escape 10 minutes later and stay alive and stay conscious which is the ultimate goal but um other things to carry that are kind of more on the defensive side um a portion of this next book is one percenters one percenters have this figured out a one percenter is outlaw motorcycle clubs right that's your hell's angels your banditos you know your mongols these are guys that some of them have records because they have a record they can't carry a gun so what do they do they get creative with the things they carry which certainly bleeds through to the average person should start carrying whether it's saps and blackjacks even brass knuckles are legal in texas now those are great alternatives if maybe you don't have a big punch but as soon as you add something to the punch now you do and that's really uh not a bad deal and then of course the padlock with a with a bandana run through it you know that is definitely um a characteristic to one of those one percent clubs that they use on a regular basis um i even there was even one guy that had he he had his chopper american-made motorcycle right and he's he's having me look at it he's like look do you see any weapons i'm like kind of staring at him like no i don't really see a weapon yeah and down the fork of his bike he had two magnets and then connected magnetized to that was a lawn mower blade right and then he had a tape handle and you couldn't see it yeah but uh i was like damn that's actually pretty brutal like just going after somebody with that like a machete except it's you know you can these are things you can buy anywhere and anything the reality is anything can be a weapon as long as you train with it goes back to training again so yeah anyway it kind of went off on a tangent there no but it's a good chance because there are plain day-to-day things you can have with you you know like you always play softball and that way you can have you know a bat and other stuff in there that relates to softball and you're 100 legit because you're a softball player even if you never use it it can be part of your go bag another one i'm a fan of are jumper cables to know where they are you start wielding jumper cables at all you've got a distance weapon you can wing around you know you can take it and fold it and if you get hit with that cable that ain't fun yeah you know and if they grab it it's just a different kind of weapon anyhow it's a lot of day-to-day things i think that's that's the point yeah i want i want to transition away from from all that it's so much fun to talk about we could do it all day but the point is is get clint's books he can got the link right there for amazon he's got all of the different 100 series if you're if you're a guy that likes to read on the grappler that is officially the best book to do so definitely get those but let's talk about how the heck a uh an operator at your level how do you become an author especially given the fact that seals they you know the the quiet professionals type they don't like you guys writing books but here you are making a living as an author consultant that kind of thing yeah um so yeah silent professional and all that certainly applies when your active duty and your paycheck comes from united states government the day that all that ends which was the day i retired after you know 20 plus years um you know that's when i it's like i'm not going to follow government rules when i'm not under the government's thumb anymore and personally i couldn't wait to get out from underneath that leash so you know i love the job i love what i did but the reality is is you give 20 years to your country and that's and then when it's time to move on you know a lot of those rules that apply um don't apply anymore i was definitely a quiet professional and while i was in um but then once you get out you it's it's all on you to figure out how you're going to pay your bills and and live the next several phases of your life you know that 20 years hopefully if i live long enough will only be a quarter of my life um and you know that we all should be striving to create you know other uh passions other careers other opportunities for as long as we live you know um and so knowing that you know uh what's funny is i had no intentions of writing books but somebody came to me and was like hey do you want to put the book together put a book together put to put a book together as a pair and i was like sure and he uh he had a ton of experience um he wasn't a seal or anything he's just a well-known author at that time and i was like yeah all right i'll you know and then i i figured i'd be the co-author and well anyway long story short he ended up having health issues and 100 the first hundred daily skill book he he bailed on me you know i give him i like to give him crap for it but yeah it was it was a legitimate health issue he ended up having surgery and he had to just pull out a hundred percent um and then i was like wait a minute how how do i do this so you know and it was right at the beginning skill number one and you know i had 100 left or 99 more to go and i was like oh this is this is fun so anyway figured it out and got it done hand in hand with uh an illustrator and you know goes to show like how important safety and security has has become to some people because that the first hundred daily skill books sat on the new york times list for like eight months straight um and who would have thought right right good for you by the way it's a picture book you know it's like so a lot of the thoughts that we had on was like goes back to what you and i were kind of talking about a minute ago is when you you have to keep it simple and you'll hear me i've been quoted saying this a thousand times is that you you keep it simple because crisis will complicate the rest right and so that book you know it's it's a how-to book it's illustrated and then it's got narrative the narrative supports the illustrations you put it all together and you know the skill now all you got to do is go out and do it and that's the part you can't really help people with but yeah who would have thought and yeah and it's a big taboo thing for seals to be writing books um and but my so far i haven't been you know completely blackballed yet so that's good i'm positive you're fine yeah yeah it's uh guys are guys i think a lot of guys a lot of guys have given it as gifts you know because it's a great gift book you know so um and it it it's timeless i made sure that there's nothing in there that's actually going to kind of null and void itself out you know so it's nice simple skills that keep you uh ahead of your of any threat out there you know one of the things that i've learned over the years and i've talked to a lot of our peers who've been outside the wire quite a bit and you know i i'll ask you the question but the the premise of this question i'm actually going to ask you is most of us agree that primarily the most what we do in combat zones is have conversations right so yes there's combat times and and basically the question is have you shot more rounds in combat or had more conversations and i know for almost everybody it's it's the conversation part which i think is important for us to realize when we look at preparedness the things that actually matter moment to moment that might make the difference to prevent you from even getting into that combative situation are often other skills that we have to keep our eyes on too so i guess um what would you say more rounds for conversations in combat and then two what are some of these less sexy things that are hyper important i mean the negotiation skill is is invaluable to staying out of conflict yeah um well we have a funny saying in the seal teams where you know people always ask why don't you guys have language skills well it's because we're never actually going anywhere to talk right there's no we don't we don't go to language schools we kind of pride ourselves and tongue-in-cheek about it all the time because we're never going uh to go anywhere to actually talk so um you know but i get what you're saying you know what the conversations that take place definitely more often than you're pulling the trigger is you know with your buddies and um you know we did have moments of like fed oriented stuff but that our primary there's other people do that far better um but it but we did get roped into it from time to time even though we fought it you know to the nail um but i would say that yeah the having an ability to [Music] relate culturally is certainly an incredible skill to have and i think it applies to everyone cultural awareness in itself can help with threat reduction right if you're not saying things that offend people you're not wearing things that offend people and you're not doing things that offend people then you've just at an at a at it's at its most basic level you're in neutral with people that observe you right we all have the ability to judge and scrutinize people we don't even know we do it all the time when you're sitting in the international terminal at the airport and you're watching people all day long and i love doing that and you you notice people and you go okay now why did i notice that person oh yeah that other person that just skated by in the background why didn't i notice him or her right those gray people and so it's it goes back to like how do you be more of that gray person um when you're not on the trigger you should be the great person and i think relating back to your question is what is that that thing that people don't think about that is really important cultural awareness and being the gray person but you can't be gray if you don't understand the culture in which you're in and that applies right here in the united states i mean we are a mixing bowl so whether you're in new york city or parts of new york city uh understanding the culture for that geographical location helps reduce the threats and how people perceive you and if they perceive you as basis as neutral then you're probably going to be okay on eliminating at least some of the threats that potentially just threaten you because oh you're wearing some big logoed hoodie and that somebody wants that logoed hoodie somebody wants that expensive you know i love panerai watches like the next guy because it's the original frogman watch that you know it was priced way way out there because schwarzenegger and stallone wear them but you know i i can't i love wearing my panerai but i know that there's times when you can't because well you know that stands out especially when you're traveling people now know what it is back when i bought mine nobody knew what the hell the thing was um anyway it's uh i think there's you know being the great person be everybody's goal and then taking cultural awareness more serious than average it will uh will certainly help you uh no matter where you are on this planet now that's big that's a big point and you know as a spy that's part of how i make my living you know at least when i did that kind of thing was staying alive by being culturally savvy you know i could protect myself with the culture of the area which isn't something i recommend anybody else try to do because it's it's i'm a professional but there was uh those questions that you can ask that put you in a better position i was in um i was in paris with my girlfriend we were out late one night and it's i think the next day is the final day of the tour de france you know so they're all going to be riding around paris so everybody's out celebrating in anticipation of this day and everything and we went to a crepe shop and it was full of all these tiny little french dudes and we walked in and we're trying to get crepes and i speak a little bit of french and it turned into this like they gave us our crepes and said we had to eat them there and they locked the door to the restaurant this is like a really thin shotgun style restaurant place there's not really a place to sit down and eat and it was full of people at like three in the morning we're like no we're good we're just gonna walk around and they were they weren't gonna let us leave and so i had to and my girlfriends wanted to like spit first ask questions later and elevate the situation yeah and so i uh this is my girlfriend at the time she's not my girlfriend anymore ultimately long story short with this is i kept my hands behind my back because i didn't want anybody to be able to say they saw me through a punch and at one point they said that i was punching people and i was able to show the officer and look at my hands i've not punched anybody and the guy's like okay fair enough you haven't punched anybody they were poking me with like you know the thing that you pulled down the shutter for the the store with they were poking me with that like i was the white whale because these are all little five foot seven dudes and i'm you know i'm six foot probably wearing boots six one and and i can i'm pretty intimidating so um we get i guess you recall we got arrested we got detained by the police and you know i don't speak enough french to get us out of this situation but um they and this took hours and hours they they called an interpreter who was this indian dude and he came from the coast he was out by normandy or somewhere and he comes in and he's talking to me he's really upset because he had to leave his family on vacation he literally had on a hawaiian shirt you know so i'm trying to get this guy calmed down and this is something i actually can do because this guy speaks english and so we were talking a little bit and then i asked him the most important question i didn't know i was trying to find out what it was but once i unlocked the lock it was it was unlocked and i said i are you from bangalore and he said how did you know it didn't matter what his answer was going to be i happen to guess good enough with his accent and i've got some regional knowledge of that but that completely changed his temperament towards us and he said i want you not to worry you were good people i instantly became good people because i asked him about where he was came from and got lucky to nail it you know yeah i picked the city that's got millions and millions of people it wasn't all that hard of a yes i could have said mumbai but i didn't and uh man i tell you what that that changed everything about what we were doing because my girlfriend was no help at all because she just tried to be hysterical and that that wasn't working but that's ultimately what led to them and then the police came and they're like yeah you guys were fine just go we missed our flight we had to go to the hospital because she got hurt in this in the melee but bank it's just it was i was never going to fight my way out of that situation it would have only gotten worse yeah no net supports like you know when i was um teaching stuff like this up in dc there for a while you know i'd always tell people the business card you collect from the average person it cr that that card becomes more valuable than the phone number to the embassy that person will help you faster than the emergency like it is without a doubt you making friends and making sure you've uh got allies is is really the goal of every day that you walk on those streets and then that way you've got you know it's a safeguard to a certain degree as you know so yeah when that shake or that elder says you can come with me you're under my protection you have to just at that point say i mean in our line of work you go yeah of course let's go and you don't show a moment of hesitation because they've given you something very special again not recommended for for folks who don't go do that but you really can protect yourself with the culture of the area and really if you're some tourist who happens to be in some place where they have shakes and they say they're going to protect you i mean you're you're protected yeah or you're already [ __ ] and don't know it yeah yeah yeah it's a danny pearl situation yeah yeah yeah i mean at some point you're you know it's sometimes it's it's already out of your hands okay so i want to get back to the writing thing i know you wrote your biography a little while ago let's talk a little bit about that how has that book been and what are you working on next so yeah the right kind of crazy um i initially didn't want to write that either but the publisher talked me into it you know uh and the reality is is you know they throw a price tag out there and you're like oh okay yeah sure why not i'll tell stories why tell stories in a book and get paid um who's not going to say yes to that i think it's funny though that most people write memoirs never admit to that part of it right so and that's that's exactly how the book is it is very honest it's very human i knew that if i was going to put together a memoir it wasn't gonna sit here and be like you know oh i'm a badass and i'm i'm basically a borderline superhero like some of these books read um mine is more like no i was a total [ __ ] skinny little runt that wanted to be a ninja when i grew up you know and i tell people all the time i found out that you know if you kill somebody as a ninja it's called murder but if you kill somebody as a seal you're called a hero so i just picked the right side of the line right so this book right kind of crazy really is uh based on a saying um and it's real you probably heard it before but you know bad stories or bad decisions make for great stories so this book is full of bad decisions and so i put it all out there um probably more than what i probably should have but people that read it they really relate to different parts in it um whether it's you know the little bit of crazy that we all have or you know being raised in a broken home dysfunctional families um parents dying early i mean i went through from beginning all the way to today with the thing and it's not about combat and all that it's really about just human stuff and if i talk about any of the operations it's only so that i can get to the funny part or to the sad part within that operation that i'm really focusing on the relationships and the people um you know that is that that's what matters inside of all the sexy stuff and so i made sure to focus on that and um that's been out for about a year and it's doing good it it it missed its marketing window because of cove or uh the russian scandal investigations turned straight into pandemic so all of my media just literally vaporized with the today show and fox and friends and the things i've done for other books just like got canceled and never got rescheduled again so there's a lot of those books sitting on shelves so if you guys want a funny ass book uh you know yeah check out right kind of crazy uh and now i'm working on the third of the hundred daily skills right you said that yeah which is the combat edition pre-sales for that will start in the next couple of weeks and the man this one is like was the most fun to do because instead of clint telling you a hundred cool skills i took the month of may in the middle of a pandemic jumped in my adventure band and drove from coast to coast 11 000 miles total visited with 17 bad asses in this country all of them experts in certain fields so that this book delivers a hundred skills that are just very devastating right just me how do i just end the conflict right now be done um and once again in in 100 daily school fashion it's illustrated very simple um but you're getting it from the guys who do it for a living every day teaching it across the country so and i didn't just focus on special operations guys i mean we got professional boxers you've got tier one guys of course then you've got you know like i said you've got one percent or hell's angel bandito guys um you know grappling guys shooters both pistol rifle sniper so the combat edition covers everything from hand to hand all the way to the sniper rifle and keeping it basic because i'm a true believer that if you master the basics you will be advanced and most people just want to think that they need to skip the basics and get to the cool stuff but the reality is it's the basics that becomes the cool stuff when you get really really good at it and that's what the this one's just gonna just blow away all the other books because it's timing i mean everyone needs this book right now yeah um and so hopefully pre-sales in the next couple of weeks and then it'll be in your hands you probably won't make christmas but it'll definitely kick off kick off the new year um trying to well i want everyone to embrace their inner bad ass because they all have it they don't know it yeah for sure hey so uh all operators are always working on something training some kind of something so what are you working on right now real like i've got to develop this skill what's what's in your uh what's in your tool bag that's you need to improve um man i i've been uh i've been changing up um you know the the strong hand we can philosophy so that has been probably the best thing i've worked on um and still working on it right being too strong hands um strong tools you know to include your head uh and really focusing on being ambidextrous be honest with you i mean with whether it's pistol right i mean we do it a lot when you're in but not to the extent of where those skill sets should be when you talk about civilian clothing and concealed carry so i highly recommend everybody create two strong hands you know it does it does it makes a world of difference on uh your capabilities yeah you think about when you do the day-to-day things like if you brush your teeth try using the other hand and if you're not sure which hand is the other hand switch hands also you'll feel it and then that's i'm a i'm very naturally ambidextrous you know i can throw i can write all those kind of things both handed you know i throw right-handed because i'm practiced there but i'll hit you with something left-handed but that's just i'm a freak with that kind of thing but even still there are things where like if i change and oh i only do this right handed i force myself to do it left-handed and i know it's it's protected me at times where like my left hand responds properly in my right you know it's it just it helps it also shares the load so you don't get like right arm strong left arm small you know yeah no no doubt and it's good for the brain people don't realize the cognitive skills that come with training your weak side to be strong um is without a doubt going to increase the function at a cognitive level level um and when you talk about agility balance and stability uh as soon as you start training the left side of your body to as an equal or for me left right nine different population are strong on the right um so but so like training both sides to be strong at everything uh is actually big big time exercise uh for your brain yeah uh if you try to if you jump try to jump with your non-jumping foot if you're right-handed you probably jump with your left foot try jumping off of your right foot you'll see the difference in strength and dexterity it's crazy and as someone who's ambidextrous it's really hard to change like you make both feet dominate with both things kicking a soccer ball but you're right like it makes your brain fire in a different way it's yeah that's a powerful that's okay i'm going to get back on i'm going to get back on uh switching my feet and my hands up as much yeah we got time for one more question do you want to ask me anything uh i guess uh i think it's pretty common i mean have you been stuck inside where you're at or what you've been you're in california right yeah i'm in orange county uh yeah i mean we've been inside and we're trying to be as respectful as we can of the danger of you know it's hard for guys like us because i don't fear the flu i'm just that's my basic mindset right i mean i've been shot at and all that kind of [ __ ] so i have to detune my my uh you know my lack i'm not not afraid of it but i just it's a risk i can mitigate i guess is what i would say so i've tried to detune that to a level that's appropriate for where i live because the culture thing matters so you know i mask up and all that stuff and i try to not take trips that aren't absolutely necessary yeah but you know scott hughes and i drove across the nation to south carolina and back you know because veteran suicide is important and i wanted to fight that so we we did that and we drove 6 000 miles and we met with all kinds of people and we were careful about it but so i would say i'm probably more active than most but probably because you know yeah it's like i never it's like it's a yeah i understand how it seems like this massive risk for some people but when you talk about you know you're when a lifestyle was nothing but risk this really doesn't seem that big a deal but you know i i respect the medical side having been an 18 delta and gone through all the special operation medical yeah you know yeah yeah yeah the other thing i like to say is look i've been hit by a tank right like a tank hit me on biop on our car so everything else is going to be some order below that you're not supposed to survive all of the upgrades all of the crazy [ __ ] you know yeah i'm with you man all right well listen i appreciate you coming on thank you so much when you have the new book come out i'd love to have you back on and revisit a lot of the same people so maybe we'll bring someone else in shelley klingerman was going to join us but she got tied up in a phone call but again thank you and everybody should definitely get the right kind of crazy uh just from hearing clint you know he's an interesting dude get that book support us by going to the amazon link on the page and it'll be in the show notes for those listening on the podcast side thanks again clint i really appreciate you and stay safe and stay healthy yeah back at you thanks for having me it's been a good time all right let me sign

Channel: Pete A Turner

Views: 238

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: clint emerson, navy seal, pete a turner, break it down show, spy combat, navy seals, clint emerson, clint emerson navy seal, clint emerson 100 deadly skills, clint emerson interview, clint emerson podcast, clint emerson self defense, clint emerson home security, 100 deadly skills, spy, escape the wolf, survival, bids, ground truth, right kind of crazy, 100 deadly skills, 100 deadly skills navy seal, 100 deadly skills book, save the brave, Shelley klingerman, Best selling author

Id: dZ2IJLm6SOo

Length: 58min 39sec (3519 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 02 2020