Episode #8 Transcript - Just How Important is Perspective in Self-Defense?

[00:00:00] 

Kelly: In today’s episode, I wanted to talk about recognizing the importance of a woman’s perspective when it comes to self-defense classes, seminars, trainings, etc. And the reason why I’m bringing this up is I recently had the opportunity to attend what was advertised as a “women’s event deescalation self-awareness, and God’s faithfulness” event at my church, I believe that it’s important to get a different perspective on self-defense and de-escalation. So that’s part of why I wanted to go. It was a male presenter, a local police sergeant who I know, I’ve known for years through my husband’s work with that as my husband’s work in that police department. [00:01:00] 

And in order to stay a student in this line of work, I like to attend anyone’s presentations on this subject because I feel like I can always take something away. The more I learn, the more knowledge I can share with my followers, the listeners to this podcast, so on and so forth. So the speaker, this gentleman, had a great stage presence. He used hor so well and even shared with us that he has a degree in theater, so he knows how to perform, how to be on stage, how to carry his voice, how to incorporate hor. He was knowledgeable on the materials he presented, but when it came to the theme of the evening, women’s safety, he missed the mark completely.

In my opinion, at the end of the event, there was probably 40 [00:02:00] women I would estimate in attendance in the room. And what I’ve heard from those attendees is that they loved his presentation and they thought he was such a great speaker. So my questions after I left that event, personally, I will completely be transparent and admit I was frustrated because I was coming to hear a perspective on women’s safety.

I, and again, I’m open to all perspectives, so this isn’t necessarily male, female, and in my opinion, know your audience and don’t bill it as women’s safety. If you’re not going to talk about women’s safety,

Doug: So, well, I have some questions for you. 

Kelly: Yes, Doug, this is part of [00:03:00] it. We wanna talk about the reality that’s out there.

Doug: So a women’s safety presentation, right. A police officer’s clearly knowledgeable about it, presenting on it. Do you think it’s possible that there are attendees who walked away from there having learned something that made them more safe?

Kelly: Ooh. That would be a lot of speculation on my part. But I’m gonna say yes, I will say that there were some attendees that took something away, whether it was right or not…

Doug: Okay. But remember, potentially, and obviously I didn’t attend it, you did potentially, you as somebody who spends a lot of time studying the subject are not the audience for an entry level [00:04:00] presentation on women’s safety. And so did you put on your, this is my first time attending anything like this….

Kelly: Hmm. I can’t say that I did and because there’s so little information out there that is more about awareness or deescalation from a female’s perspective, there’s really nothing I have to compare it to. It’s actually pretty easy for me to take the information in and say, oh, I compared to, I’ll listen to the presentation or the information, the tips, the tricks, whatever are shared and say, ‘Did I know that?

‘Did I not know that? Is that something new to me? Does that match up with what I’m teaching?’ So it’s not the, ‘Oh, I already knew that’ and brushing it off. It’s, ‘Oh, okay, good’. That is something that I [00:05:00] teach too, almost in a, I’m using the same articulation or the same verbiage. I’m explaining it or there’s another option of a way of explaining something that I also…

So I’m very open. I do come at it with an honest student heart whenever I hear any other presenters talking about situational

Doug: Well, I mean, I think, hmm, there’s a lot in this, right? So, if I go down to the smallest level of how these things often germinate, right? Somebody says to an officer that they know, ‘Hey, I have a group of people who have asked questions about X, Y, Z subject, you’re a police officer….

‘Clearly you must be an expert in this space. Can you put together a presentation on this?’ And sometimes there’s a lack of clarity about what’s the end goal, what success looks like, at the end of that. But he is a police officer, so [00:06:00] clearly he knows and has experience in this space. And they then become confusion in the live presentation because there’s a difference between being an expert in something, being an entertainer, and then being a trainer.

And so the best trainers in my mind are both experts and entertaining in how they deliver it. But lots of people who give presentations are really good at entertainment, but not at being an expert or the other than there are plenty of experts that can’t present to save themselves or get themselves out of a hotspot.

So, I think there’s a lot there that not having attended myself, I can’t really. Pick apart. Well, but I think it’s an opportunity to meet with and find ways to help this potential officer do better or fill that void to help others learn how to do this better. [00:07:00] 

Kelly: Right, and that’s mean but you bring up a good point. This is not focused on this particular individual. That’s why I’m not saying a name. That’s why I’m trying to be as broad in his descriptions as possible. Because what I found as I was driving home from after the event was how do I use this as motivation for myself and the work that I’m doing is, ‘Hey, look at this’.

From that perspective of what you’re doing is… And we don’t know what we don’t know… So women specifically because this was a women’s focused event, we don’t even know there’s a difference out there. And that was one of the questions I was also thinking about. How does that paradigm get shifted. I hear over and over again before I start a Diamond Arrow Group presentation on [00:08:00] situational awareness or self-defense is, ‘Oh wait, we’re not gonna hit anything? Wait, wait, wait. We’re not going to punch bags and kick bags and yell a lot?’ And I’m like, ‘No, we’re not.’ And they’re almost disappointed because so much of the opinion or what’s assumed self-defense. When you say self-defense, people assume physical. And if you Google self-defense instructors near me, I’m gonna guess that they’re all a physical-based class, whether they have a female instructor or not.

I think that’s getting better. I’m seeing more and more female instructors, and again, but it’s the physical based. And so how do you… I almost feel like a bait and switch sometimes with what I do is I am teaching you self-defense, but you don’t need to come in gym clothes [00:09:00] and it’s almost like I need to get them in the room and then do the switch and say we’re not hitting anything.

In fact, we might not even yell at all in this presentation, but you’ll laugh and you’ll learn.

Doug: Well, as we’ve discussed…

Kelly: Is that wrong? Is that wrong? Is that wrong? To do the bait and switch with…

Doug: Yeah. Who is wrong? I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s wrong. But back to how you got into this space to begin with. Right. And some of what you’ve learned along the way. We know it’s always better to avoid having gotten on the X in the first place, right? And so many of those instructors that are teaching the self-defense tools, they’re teaching you what to do once you’ve gotten on the X, right?

And so you need both, right? But everybody will tell you the best way to get out of a fight is to never get into a fight, right? And so you wanna find ways to [00:10:00] reach both types of students. And because nobody needs just one skill set, they need both skill sets. They need to be able to identify these dangers, these threats, these risks out there in order to process them and then be able to respond.

Right? Going back to the OODA loop discussion, they also need to have training in those forms of response so that they know what to do once they’ve gotten into the middle of that loop. And so I don’t necessarily think that you’re bait and switching per se if you’re changing the nature of it.

But, I think you could… there’s room to talk about this from that perspective. Now, I would go back and again, I haven’t seen the marketing materials from that church group, andI’m not sure how I would define what women’s safety is. Right? And you could probably do an entire presentation working through just what is women’s safety.[00:11:00] 

But if I’m hard pressed to tell this instructor that he screwed up, I might be willing to tell him he missed an opportunity to go deeper and make it better and provide better tools and skill sets to them. But,if he gave them something that some of them walked away where they’re now asking more questions then they’ve moved further along that line, in taking responsibility for their own safety and security.

Kelly: And I think that’s key is the feedback. And my concern, and I shared this with my husband, is he needs to know or be reminded, it did miss the mark and [00:12:00] trying to stay high level because I don’t know what the conversation was in booking him. I did know the woman who introduced him that night said, I heard him speak at my employer…So at my place of work, I heard him speak on this subject, and I invited him here to speak to us on women’s safety. So there’s a lot of room for communication errors, lack of expressing expectations. “Hey, officer or sergeant, why don’t you come give this presentation at my church to our women’s group?”

“Sounds good.” So in his head, I’m doing the exact same presentation. I just gave it a place of employment, co-ed, all ages, so on and so forth. And then she goes back to, “Hey, I’m bringing in this expert to talk about women’s safety.” It’s not communicated…

Doug: Did he talk about safety? [00:13:00] So ignore the name, the word woman in the subject and just focusing on the content delivery. Would attendees, irrespective of their gender, have been safer after that presentation than before? Did they walk away with better skills, attitude, or practical skills?

Then they went in there…

Kelly: Tough. So this is where Kelly says… I would say yes because I know what he was trying to teach. One thing, and I’ll use this as an example, he talked about if you’re talking to someone, don’t get too close to them and then blade yourself and make sure you can see their hands. Yes, create space. If [00:14:00] someone’s aggravated, if someone’s escalating, if they’re getting angry, creating space is good advice.

Blading yourself, turning sideways so that you’re not squared up face to face with them. Good advice. Did the ladies understand a scenario or a concept? Well, when would that happen? I come at it from, so if my 6’3”, 250 pound linebacker, son is ticked off. Yeah, I’m not gonna square up, I’m gonna blade, but am I gonna think about that when I’m at home?

Or am I thinking about it from a scenario of with a stranger and would still work, creating space, blading your body, turning it sideways. So that’s where my instructor critic would come, would give him that feedback saying, “Hey, make sure you’re using scenario examples that your audience can relate to.”

And [00:15:00] that’s really, I mean, I don’t wanna get into the nitty gritty, so to speak, of how or what he presented from a ‘here’s the feedback’… because to your point, I wasn’t, you weren’t there, so you don’t… it’s one person’s perspective more for me is why I question that. We talked about the opposite. In previous episodes.

So I said to my husband, because it was promoted at our church for weeks coming up to this class, and I said, gosh, there’s something in the pit of my stomach that gets frustrated because I would never stand up as a female, even if I was a female law enforcement officer. Say, I’m gonna go and talk to a room full of men and talk to them about men’s safety. That’s not something I would do because I would say… what? I can give you a broad defense or broad perspective on personal safety, but I recognize [00:16:00] I’m not the best speaker for this. Let me refer you to my male coworker who also teaches this, and that’s to me where sometimes it gets frustrating. As society, it’s generally accepted that men are the experts when it comes to self-defense, because typically men are more physical, which we line up with more physical actions, physical sense of self-defense. They’re typically the martial arts instructors. They’re typically law enforcement, the majority.

Kelly: And so changing that, how do I change that paradigm? How do I get out there and say, ladies, but because I asked somebody, I said, so what did you learn from a woman’s perspective on safety? And she kind of went, she hadn’t thought of it.

Doug: Could you teach a group of men about situational awareness, [00:17:00] irrespective of men’s situational awareness? You could.

Kelly: I could if I spent a lot of time researching it, but I’m not gonna understand violence the same.

Doug: But I didn’t ask about violence. I talked about situational awareness.

Kelly: Part of situational awareness is recognizing pre-event before the violence.

Doug: But you could study, you could become an expert in some of those situations. I mean, so my point is the reason why so many of the instructors are male is because I think the law enforcement community is an overwhelmingly dominated male community, and that’s where so much of this has come from either military or law enforcement, that training pool, I mean we were looking at a very well known, private security company recently.

Put a picture of their graduating class on social media and not a single graduate of this [00:18:00] class that was going into executive protection was a woman. So to an extent, the answer why it’s a man teaching a woman’s safety class is pretty self-evident in the sheer number of instructors that are male in this space far outpaces the female cadre. I think a good instructor is gonna sit there and go, “Okay, what can I connect, not connect within this audience?” Right? Where is my information and/or experience gap coming to bear in order to share the right education with my student body?

What are definitions of success? How do I define this? And I suspect going back to the idea of a woman who sees something at her company, a presentation in her company, and then said, “Hey, we should do this for the women in my church.” There’s nothing bad in any of that. What we’re really talking about here is the difference between, good, better, and best, [00:19:00] , options.

And so ways to make it better or make it a best option, could be by improving some of this, and a lot of that takes self-awareness on the part of the instructor to recognize the need for that improvement, that development, that filling of those gaps from an experience base that’s different than his own.

Kelly: I agree. A lot of this is coming… I recognize from my own frustrations, it’s based on my emotions of how do I even let people know that I’m here? How do I even make women aware of what situational awareness is? I believe it was last summer, I did a keyword search on situational awareness and Google said, oh, situational awareness is up 90 percent or 900. And now I’m seeing more and more [00:20:00] situational awareness terms used in marketing materials to talk about training. And it’s actually exciting to me. That’s awesome. That maybe we’re turning a corner. And so to me, I like going to other presenters, training opportunities specifically when they’re saying, I teach situational awareness. Because I wanna, I wanna continue learning. So for the listeners, I guess, and may, and for you too, Doug, how can we, how can I better, how can we, the Diamond Arrow Group, reach women who want this information and, and maybe to anyone listening to this episode, what would you suggest? How did you find the Diamond Arrow Group?

The Thrive Unafraid podcast. What are some of those strategies or ways to reach people to get their attention other [00:21:00] than word of mouth? That’s really how the Diamond Arrow Group has gotten to this point, and kind of like the book says, what got you here won’t get you there. Okay. Word of mouth has worked great, it’s had a snowball effect, and the world is still a dangerous place.

It’s still frightening. I don’t know statistically whether it is more dangerous or just seems that way because we can see tragedies that happen anywhere, all over the world within seconds. But how do we overcome this paradigm? Is it truly, I just gotta keep plugging away, keep the nose to the grindstone?

Or are there other ways?

Doug: You have 30 plus women who attended that class that are now better prepared to hear the message that you can deliver to them. They’re now at that [00:22:00] first step on their journey of taking personal responsibility for their own personal safety. And now they’re learning the grammar of this space.

If nothing else, they had their eyes open to the need to dig in more to this. So I would view that as an opportunity for you to take 30 women that have now had a little bit poured into them and say, do you wanna learn more? I have more to share with you and nobody can hit all of the community out there.

So it’s looking for opportunities to take the folks that want to learn more, that wanna continue to grow in, in their skillset and say, yeah, there’s more there to to learn. So I don’t mind somebody who shows up and gives an intro and sends folks away. I worry about somebody who shows up and says, now you’ve done everything you need and you’re good to go.

My sense is nobody walked out of there thinking that they know everything they needed to know to walk safely [00:23:00] on the street. And so I think it’s somewhere in there that there’s an opportunity to begin to have a conversation with more and more women about what does it mean? Ownership or responsibility for your personal security, and do you wanna learn more?

Because I can teach you.

Kelly: I like that approach. I do and honestly…

Doug: …and you can even…

Kelly: …because I feel like there is…

Doug: You can even help him be a better instructor by saying, “Hey, I can actually take some of those folks to the next level. Let’s find ways to communicate differently so that they’re even better prepared for when they want to dig in more.”

Kelly: And I’d welcome that conversation with that instructor. I do think part of what he does or part of his job duties in the role that he has, Is getting out in the community and talking to businesses. [00:24:00] So he may be able to refer me to people saying, “Hey, they had this first class. I think this would be a warm lead for you.”

In other words, I’d be open to that. And in general, I think a lot of women take one or two women’s self-defense classes not thinking, oh, now I have it all figured out. But it’s almost like a check the box thing. Okay. I went and took a woman’s self-defense class. But the reality is, typically, those classes are put on by gyms or martial arts studios who are actually looking for members. It’s a membership pitch. Get people in the door. So it’s not, here’s a series of classes. It’s, Hey, take this women’s, so-and-so ABC Gym is offering a women’s self-defense class. Hey, while you’re here, here’s our gym membership.

Doug: Yeah. No…[00:25:00] 

Kelly: Again, I’m not saying everybody does this, but I think that’s why women typically go, they do one class and then they’re like, Hmm, okay, hit and kick and scream. Got it.

Doug: But you, at some level you wanna. You don’t wanna spend all your time saying to somebody who’s never, ever thought about their own security, teaching them that they now need to think about this. Your most effective use of your expertise is to take people that have started the questioning process, right?

And that already want to go dig in more. And so these are opportunities that partnering with Jim to deliver training. There’s all, I think there’s a bunch of options there that can be gone into and, and trying to help train other people to be trainers so that there are more women who can deliver the [00:26:00]  situational awareness training so that there the go-to’s, not necessarily, let’s go talk to a cop, because clearly the cop knows about safety and as we’ve seen cops know.

Being police officers, they know about community policing. They know about SWAT. Depending upon what their expertise is in that doesn’t make them experts in personal security.

Kelly: Well, and I think that was another thing I wanted to bring up as well. What makes it different is talking about that predator and prey conversation. Which typically goes to a stranger attack. What does that look like? And I talk about this in my trainings. Calling it, Hey, first impressions, seven second rule, or whatever.

Whatever they’re saying currently, how long it takes us as humans to form first impressions of other people. But I bring that up in my trainings and say, this is why they have career classes or college classes on how you carry yourself when you present, how you shake [00:27:00] hands. Do you make eye contact when saying someone’s name?

All of these things, how you walk across a room. Is important when it comes to work and success and closing the deal when it comes to sales or negotiating your pay raise, whatever it may be. I said the same thing happens in a stranger situation or the stranger attacks where they’re looking for a victim.

So they’re looking to steal a purse, they’re looking to steal a laptop, whatever it may be. They’re gonna watch and look. Well, who is gonna be my best target? Who is gonna be my best victim? And so I talk about, have you ever heard the saying she’s a hundred pound soaking wet, but I wouldn’t mess with her.

And everyone laughs usually. And I say, that’s how you walk matters. I talk about that 1980s study [00:28:00] with the two psych. Individuals walking down New York City sidewalks and how individuals incarcerated for muggings were asked to pick out who they would target as victims, and then why. And people always find that information really fascinating.

I’ll put some of this information in the Episode Key for those of you listening. So you can just go to our website, thediamondarrowgroup.com and download this information or more details about it. But that’s an easy conversation in my mind. The Stranger attack, what’s harder is 75 to 85% of attacks on women come from someone we know and that what we know or who we know is a real broad description.

Because would you say the acquaintance, friend of a friend, would you say  them or not your coworkers? So how that’s defined impacts, and I think that’s why the studies are [00:29:00] such a broad range. More than likely you’re gonna know or recognize your attacker at some level.

This is not a complete stranger is what they’re saying. And that changes the conversation on de-escalation techniques. That changes the conversation on the way they’re gonna test your boundaries. How you enforce your boundaries if you feel like they’re being tested. And that’s where I think sometimes that in women’s self-defense, that gets missed.

I know it gets missed because that’s a really sticky place to talk about. Well, how do you do it if it’s your coworker that you gotta see day after day that’s threatening or testing your.

Doug: So, I mean, I think I wanna be careful for our audience. This is not Kelly trying to figure out how to figure out her marketing path…

Kelly: Yeah. Oh yeah. Sorry. I went to a different conversation.

Doug: It’s a little bit of saying how do we encourage our listeners [00:30:00] to hold their instructors accountable to being better.

At what they’re delivering, right? Whether it’s that initial instruction or whether it’s that gym class or whether it’s even, you at Diamond Arrow Group. How can the people that we’re reaching the students hold the instructors to a higher accountability for delivery of, of what they’re doing so that they expect more and therefore get more so that they are actually every time safer coming?

Kelly: Right, and that’s a great point, and I’m glad you bring that up. Because I think what happens sometimes is if you ask a question because you’re like, well, that wouldn’t work with my uncle who’s creepy or who’s always a little bit inappropriate with his comments or is gets too close or hugs a little too long.

I can’t do X, Y, Z, physical moves. Or I’m [00:31:00] not going to say I never want to see you again, because guess what? The next holiday, you’re not necessarily in control of the guest list. So I think it’s calling out those differences. To your point, as an attendee, if you’re listening to this podcast, know that that’s an okay question to ask.

Kelly: if the instructor says, well, no, you should still do this, and you’re like, it doesn’t fit in the scenario. Doesn’t make you…

Doug: Right, so run everything through your filter as you’re listening, right? So ask a question if you’re embarrassed to ask. Realize you’re not the only person in the room that also has that question. So if you’re embarrassed to ask it for yourself, ask it because somebody else also has that same question because everybody’s got that creepy uncle, too.

Kelly: Sorry. Creepy uncles.

Doug: …willing to ask you, in the group setting, ask it privately after. Make a list of the questions that you really wished you’d [00:32:00] asked but didn’t feel comfortable for whatever reason. And find another venue to ask them. Right? So use as an attendee, one of these events, use these opportunities to…

You’re questioning better so what questions you still have unanswered. And fourth, go back and review the content that you were given and say, what questions do I now have that weren’t answered in that? Or what questions did I have going into it that weren’t answered? And how do I go get those and begin to look for other folks who can help fill those holes and answer those?

Those same questions about personal security, situational awareness, and safety.

Kelly: That’s a great list. We’ll put those in the episode key, too. So for any of you listening, we’ll have those questions so you can take ’em as a little cheat sheet next time you go and attend class and, and ways to think about what questions you might have. I [00:33:00] think a big part of this too is self-awareness to the point of, “Hey, what questions do you even have?” And part of building self-awareness and the role it plays in your personal safety is what? Well, we talked about before the OODA Loop, or observe, orient, decide, act, which is a very tactical term, used often in very expert level classes or at a high level without really being able, there’s not usually time to break down each step in order to explain it fully.

I use the example of driving your car. You use the OODA Loop when you drive. Every single time you’re observing the cars around you, you’re orientating the space around you to the lines in the road, cars in the road. And if you need to make an adjustment in order to keep driving safely, you have a decision to make.

And then you take action to make that decision. One, whatever your options were, change lanes, [00:34:00] hit the brakes so that you avoid an accident… So we use this decision making loop in many, many different ways in our daily life. But a big part of that is that orient filter and I talk about that is, well, what you need to trust your intuition signals and in order to start building those intuition, hearing skills, I’ll say it, it’s good to say, well, why does something make me afraid?

Why? Why do I have fear about this? I use the example of city versus country, all the. I live in the country environment. It’s not unusual for us to hear coyotes howling at night. If you grow up in the city, that’s not something you probably heard as a regular thing. Might cause you more fear or panic.

When you hear that. What are they coming at? They’re gonna get my dog. What are they doing? Why are they being so loud all of a sudden? Wow, that’s a lot of chaos. [00:35:00] And to me I’m like, ah, whatever. It’s just normal. It’s a normal night. The coyotes got something. They got a rabbit, who knows?

But building awareness of what your intuition is part of starting the personal safety journey. And I think that ties in really nicely with what you were talking about, asking questions. What causes you fear? What causes you to be uncomfortable in scenarios and situations with certain individuals so what questions to ask of an instructor.

Doug: I think a lot of folks get wrapped up in the jargon. The jargon can be scary, every parent….

Kelly: …or intimidating.

Doug: ..that’s watched their toddler stumble towards the hot stove and worried about their child grabbing a pot or touching the hot stove, understands the OODA loop. They just don’t know the language for it.

Right? They oriented. They observed, they decided, and they act to stop their child from burning themselves on the stove. You, you sometimes have to [00:36:00] change your orientation depending upon your environment. That’s the city versus country example. Or another one I like to talk about is the going from New York to London example, and there’s a reason why at the crosswalks in London, they have painted on the sidewalk look right?

Because the orientation of traffic is different and they want to remind people who may be coming from other environments where they would look left to cross the street, that if they look left, they could quite well get smashed by one of those big red double decker buses that’s flying down the road.

And so that orientation has to change and it has to be a conscious choice to change that. So  it’s giving folks the grammar, the verbiage, the tools, so that they know how to apply them. They already have the skillset to apply ’em. It’s [00:37:00] just making it intentional and changing the active nature of doing it on a regular basis.

Kelly: And I like that. I’ve never personally traveled to London, but that’s really fascinating because I didn’t that they drew, what did you say? Drove on the opposite side of the road from what I’m used to. And so, yeah, look right, I would look, I always look left when I’m crossing a street first, because that’s the incoming traffic immediately when I’m about to start crossing a street, whereas in Europe and or London, that’s coming from the right that I could.. that would be me.

That would be something I would be doing. Oh look, I’m so situationally aware and I look left forgetting to orient myself to this new environment, to this new rules of where I am. So that’s a good example. I’m gonna borrow that, Doug, I’ll give you credit.

Doug: There you go. You can even go online and find a screenshot [00:38:00] or a couple pictures of the sidewalks and throw it in a presentation.

Kelly: Yeah, and that would be a good question to get people. Which way do you look first when you’re crossing the road? And we’ll see if anybody says, well, where am I when I’m crossing this road? And this isn’t a chicken crossing the road question either. 

And to wrap it up, I did wanna talk about for any of our listeners. I always like to give a little something besides the daily habit, but what is something you can take away? So I thought it would be good to discuss the three main things to focus on when individuals are building their awareness. I’ll put these all in the episode key. So if you’re driving listener or you’re doing something else, you’re at work, you’re listening with your earbuds in while you’re at work, we’re not gonna judge, we won’t tell your boss.

You can just go to the website, thediamondarrowgroup.com. Go to the podcast page and you can get the episode keys for all of our episodes. And this one, the three main things to [00:39:00] focus on with building your awareness. I think you really need to build an understanding of your orient filter. No judgment or shame.

Consider how and where you were raised. It was a country, was it urban? Was it London? Who was a big influence in your life growing up, your parents, other family members, maybe a coach, a teacher, some sort of a mentor. And then any life experiences you’ve had you really need to understand your perspective of the world, how you look at things, where your biases lie, why, what’s, what causes you to get uncomfortable or makes you feel fear or worry.

About something happening that, anything that you would add to that building understanding of your orient filter, Doug?

Doug: No, I think that’s good. I think it’s being intentional about it. And learning to ask [00:40:00] questions about what you’re seeing.

Kelly: Yeah, and it’s not always safety focused. When you make a decision based on a gut instinct, what did that feel like? And that could be from anything in your life that you’re like, I just feel like today I need to go right instead of left. Or I need to… again, whatever decision. I don’t wanna give too many because then people get stuck.

But how did, or maybe were there any sensory inputs? Something you smelled, something you heard, something you saw that helped inform. That intuition, signal wire, intuition, your instinct said maybe instead of looking left when you’re crossing the street, Kelly, look right cuz you’re in London.

Doug: And I would add there’s no shame in learning from failure. Failure is the best teacher, but there’s shame in refusing to learn from failure. So don’t be afraid to pick [00:41:00] apart some of those situations where there’s room for learning. And be intentional about them. There’s very little learning in success.

Kelly: That’s a taoism. I’m writing that down right now. That’s another taoism. No shame in failure, only shame in refusing to learn.

Doug: And success is a poor teacher.

Kelly: It is. And then lastly on the three main things to focus on when building your awareness, I think what do you normally expect to see, hear, or smell, feel when you’re in different environments? Whether that’s at work, whether that’s at home, at the gym or your grocery store, the usual places you visit and try to be as specific in naming them as possible. So what do you normally see when you walk into work? Is it always, do you work a morning shift and you always [00:42:00] smell coffee or there’s always this… your coworker is always there at their desk when you get there, they always beat you in.

They’re always there first in their DA sitting at their desk. What do you normally see? Places you go. And practice. And practice and practice everywhere you go. What do I normally expect to see here? Because that leading into the baseline anomaly scenario.

Doug: Well, it’s setting your baseline.

Kelly: Right? And that’s in order to notice when something’s off, something’s different.

You have to have that baseline for the environment already established because otherwise you don’t know what’s normal.

Doug: Have we talked about the Secret Service example on that?

Kelly: I don’t think so.

Doug: So, one aspect of the Secret Service is responsibility for dealing with counterfeit funds. And there’s literally [00:43:00] countless variances of fake U.S. bills, but there is only one variant or very few variants of legitimate U.S. bills.

And so Secret Service officers who are responsible for working on counterfeit spend the bulk of their time in learning how to tell counterfeit from genuine, by studying genuine rather than studying fakes. And by learning that baseline so well, they can immediately tell a fake bill the anomaly from the baseline.

Whereas if they spent their time… you’d have no baseline if you spent your time studying the counterfeit world because there’s so many variants out there. So they learn that baseline so well that a variant to it immediately leaps off the page. 

Kelly: That’s a cool example. I hadn’t heard that. [00:44:00] Another great one that we’ll put on the episode key so that you can have a little reminder of Doug. Another story from Doug. Some knowledge bombs dropped from Doug. And then the daily habit ties in nicely with what this conversation we’re having is that memory recall.

While you’re intentionally focused on listening to your intuition or establishing some of those baselines and just being very present. And aware of your surroundings later on in the day. Ask yourself, how many details can you recall from walking into work right away this morning from walking in the door?

When you got home from that quick stop you made at the grocery store on your way home or coffee shop, or you stopped to visit someone, had to run an errand. How many details can you recall from those interactions? I always use the example when I’m teaching is when [00:45:00] memory recall is I am horrible at my memory recall of what my kids are wearing, like a specific details because I don’t care as long as they have clothes on, I don’t care what shirt it is.

I don’t care if the patterns match or don’t match, if their color choices are not good. Because as long as they have clothes on it, it’s not an issue. I’m going to pick with them their fashion choices, their clothing choices in the morning. It’s one less thing mom has to do, or dad has to do, pick out their clothes.

They’re big enough to do it themselves. And so for me, I recognize that I have, I have to work on my memory recall of what my kids are wearing. I have to be very intentional about paying attention to that.

Doug: Good. Although you should care what they’re wearing.

Kelly: Why?

Doug: How else are you gonna describe, if something happens and you gotta go track ’em down…

Kelly: Oh, [00:46:00] well, yes, that’s what I’m saying is I’m trying to work on it because as a parent.

Doug: You could cheat and take a picture.

Kelly: I know somebody, John from GLG Knifework said that he, because he gets up and he works so early in the morning, part of their family routine is his wife takes a selfie with their kids and she sends it as Good Morning Dad.

And that way he says every day I have evidence or a visual reminder of what my kids were wearing.

Doug: I would.

Kelly: And I thought that was pretty brilliant.

Doug: They have a good habit that strengthens a family bond that also delivers that secondary benefit.

Kelly: Yes, Doug. I get it. Focus on the positive first. I get it. Well, thank you to all of our listeners for joining us today on this episode. We hope you enjoyed it. I hope you don’t think that Kelly doesn’t think male self-defense [00:47:00] instructors are smart. That was not the intention of this episode, but hey, let’s have discussions about making sure we know our audience as instructors, as trainers. Ask.  If you don’t know, you don’t know. You’re not expected to know everything, even though you’re the instructor trainer. Be humble enough or self-aware enough to know what you don’t know, and to seek out advice or refer to someone who might have a little bit more knowledge on that subject, such as being a woman, guys.

Anyway, Thrive Unafraid is brought to you in part by Mace. They have been a big supporter of the work the Diamond Arrow Group has been doing over the years, and we appreciate their work to empower individuals with tools, a variety of different tools to increase your personal safety. So by partnering with this podcast and the Diamond Arrow Group, together, we [00:48:00] can help anyone Live Life Unafraid.

And until next time, listeners, Stay Sharp!