The Human Behavior Podcast
Do you ever wonder why people act the way that they do? Join human behavior experts Brian Marren and Greg Williams as they discuss all things human behavior related. Their goal is to increase your Advanced Critical Thinking ability through a better understanding of HBPR&A (Human Behavior Pattern Recognition & Analysis.) What is HBPR&A? It's a scientific (and fun) way to understand and articulate human behavior cues so that you can predict likely outcomes and it works regardless of your race, religion, political ideology or culture!
The Human Behavior Podcast
How Practice Saved My Life: Applying HBPR&A Under Fire
What happens when theory meets reality in a life-or-death situation? Dan Chavez found out firsthand when he and his wife suddenly found themselves in the middle of an active shooter incident. In this riveting conversation, Dan walks us through the split-second decisions that likely saved his life and, more importantly, how his training in behavioral awareness created automatic responses that kicked in when his conscious mind had no time to deliberate.
The power of Dan's story lies not just in its intensity, but in how perfectly it illustrates why traditional approaches to training often fail. "Most training is descriptive rather than prescriptive," Dan explains. "You walk away thinking 'that was great, I'm more aware,' but it doesn't translate into actionable skills." As VP of Training Innovation and Performance, Dan brings a unique perspective that bridges academic understanding with real-world application.
This episode dives deep into the neuroscience of crisis response, examining how our limbic system takes control under threat and why the habits we've practiced become our default actions. We explore Human Performance Technology as an alternative to conventional training, starting with organizational outcomes rather than learning objectives, and measuring success through observable behavioral changes rather than classroom hours.
Whether you're responsible for training others or simply want to better prepare yourself for high-stress situations, this conversation offers invaluable insights into how genuine proficiency develops. As Dan discovered in that bar when shots were fired, the difference between theoretical knowledge and trained behavior can mean everything when seconds count.
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Hello everyone and welcome to the Human Behavior Podcast. On today's episode, we're joined by our friend and now teammate, dan Chavez, who shares a personal and powerful story. What happened the night he and his wife found themselves in the middle of an active shooter situation? Dan walks us through how his training helped him make rapid, life-saving decisions under pressure and what he learned in the aftermath. But that story is just the beginning. Dan brings a rich background in structural design, organizational performance and human performance improvement fields where theory meets real-world application. We dig into why most training falls short, how to measure actual proficiency and what good looks like when it comes to preparing people for high-stakes, high-stress situations. Whether you're in public service leadership or just want to understand how training can truly change behavior, this episode is for you. Thank you so much for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed the episode and don't forget to check out our Patreon channel for additional content and subscriber only episodes. If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving us a review and, more importantly, sharing it with a friend. Thank you for your time and remember training changes behavior. All right, we are recording. Hello everyone, thanks for tuning in. Super excited about our guest today Greg.
Speaker 1:We've got our buddy and now employee former advisory board member, dan Chavez on the podcast. For those of the Patreon subscribers, you probably know him already. We did a little talk with him on there to get his background, but I wanted to bring him on here to have all of our listeners listen to his perspective on things and learn a little bit about what he does for a living's. One, it's really fascinating and, two, he's part of the team now. He was on our advisory board for a couple of years pretty much, and he would help us out with stuff, like we do with different folks on our advisory board. And then basically he got to the point where, okay, brian, I'm not doing any more of this work unless you start paying me. So I just said Dan funny how that works.
Speaker 1:And I was thinking about hiring you. Are you interested in a job here? So it took a day, to take a little bit longer than we wanted to get it to line up, but it finally did. So here we are.
Speaker 2:The key is to fire Dan before that first paycheck. And then you know, you're going to try to say, yeah, gosh, damn, it Ran to the bank.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's how I got him back on that second we called. I was like Dan's late and then he's like oh, sorry, I was checking to make sure that check actually went through. And it did, so we're good, which I respect Right.
Speaker 1:But that's a little bit, yeah, exactly, especially with this crew. But I want to bring it on and I'll let you kind of introduce yourself in terms of your background and stuff, dan, because you do a much better job than I do and I'll butcher it. And so why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about you and kind of what you bring to the team?
Speaker 3:Sure. First, thanks guys for everything for having me on the podcast. I've listened to so many of these episodes and they're great supplemental material. If you've been through the course, it's a great standalone but also really deep diving into some of the big core components that you guys teach. And then it was great being on the advisory board and is absolutely mission aligned for me from an individual purpose to be supporting public service, public safety, first responders in their roles and to have some type of impact in what they do on the day-to-day.
Speaker 1:So background lies we're going to look on that, dan, too, before you jump into background. I'm just like that's profound. This must be really magical for you to listen to this podcast and then to hope one day I could be a guest on the Human Behavior Podcast. Who? Doesn't say that though, maren, your dream has come true.
Speaker 2:Exactly who doesn't want to fulfill their destiny by being on this show and our seven listeners.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Three of whom are here right now.
Speaker 3:So I'll just say I came to this profession late, I'd say. Act one was married. My high school sweetheart joined the military, raised a couple of daughters, wonderful daughters. So I don't know if that's the way they say, you should do it out of the playbook. But that got me into my mid thirties, right there. A lot of operational jobs, a lot of a lot of just you know, hey, do this, do that, do the other.
Speaker 3:So at some point my mid thirties kind of got my act together, I would say, and went back to school and ended up finishing my undergrad, went, did a graduate program in what's called instructional design. So it's a subfield of education, but it's not K through 12. It's not university, it's really for applied workforce development. So this would be law enforcement, could be emergency services, hospital, and it originated out of the military training needs in the 50s and 60s. So it's incredibly applied and it combines instruction with what we know about how people learn for task-based performance in a role like being a police officer, like being a firefighter, et cetera, et cetera. So, coming out of that program, have been working probably for the last 15 years in the field and I would say the highlight of my profession previous to working with you guys, of course, is was working at the New York City Department of Correction and running the Correction Academy. So I was the number two person in charge and really was responsible for the day-to-day operations and the curriculum oversight for Department of Corrections. We varied anywhere from 8,000 to 12,000 uniformed officers plus about 1,500 non-uniformed staff. So all of their professional development but, more important, all of their proficiency-related training related to actually going out there to doing their jobs on a day-to-day basis On Rikers Island eight facilities and incredibly diverse populations of individuals that they have to come in contact with, problem solve and support on a day-to-day basis. So did that for three years and towards the tail end of that, as you guys know, that's when I found out about Greg's work, your work, brian. A friend of mine, jack Hall Willock, gave me the book Left of Bang and in the intro to Left of Bang you'll see, as you guys know, an acknowledgement to Greg Williams as being the owner, essentially, of the IP for the Left of Bang concept through what he did with Combat Hunter.
Speaker 3:And I would say my one wish is that I had met you guys sooner, because I feel that the concepts that are being taught here are so incredibly relevant to anyone in a Department of Corrections environment, because you're going out there you talk about things like a baseline or an anomaly. Those are things that those men and women have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. It's just an incredibly complex environment. They're dealing with gangs, they're dealing with mental health issues Just an incredible variety. And this really is such a robust framework that I wish that I had known you guys sooner so that I could have advocated for it. And I'll say that's a workplace kind of situation that I know it works and would work there. But also the last thing I'll say is that I know it works because I actually had to use it. So I think this is important.
Speaker 3:Last year I think it's been about a year now I was involved in a shooting. My wife and I were. We've been living down here in Southern Jersey for about a year and a half, so one of the things that you guys taught me actually is just kind of like build your baseline, understand what's going on, and I had been doing this. So on a particular day I'm out with my wife, we're walking around and everything's normal. Streets are good People, right amount of people. So we go into a bar and we're there probably for about an hour. It's maybe around nine o'clock, around 10 o'clock. There's two entrances. They go ahead and they close one of the entrances. And I'm just kind of actively processing this information, kind of, according to what I know, all right, when we get up and leave, we're going to have to go out this door because that one's closed. So we get up about a half hour later and we're getting ready to leave, exiting that door, and we hear what sounds like gunshots. Immediately duck down.
Speaker 3:Now, because I've been kind of processing this, I'm thinking and my wife says was that fireworks? I said no, that was definitely a gunshot. We paused for a second. I initially thought, okay, maybe there's a gunfight happening outside Immediately, probably might've been. A second later this guy burst through the door. So we're getting ready to leave. He comes in and the look on his eyes is he's running for his life. Now what I expected is thinking the gunfire was going outside. He's just going to duck down and kind of wait it out like the rest of us. He comes running by as fast as he can. So immediately I update all right, this is not an outside shooting. This guy is being pursued, and there's a high likelihood that somebody is going to burst through the door behind him. That's going to be the gun Everybody inside scatters.
Speaker 3:I think what's significant, though, is I know my heart was racing, I was primed to flee, but I immediately thought I'm running this way. But I'm looking for the kitchen. I know there's a kitchen back there and I know it has an emergency exit. Because they all do so, I'm running back there as fast as I can. I get to the kitchen it's dark. I turn around. There's only one person that came in behind me. Unfortunately, that's the same person that came in through the front door, so it's me and the individual being pursued. We're in the kitchen.
Speaker 3:Stop, briefly, kind of get my bearings again. I can't find the exit. So here I am again. Now. I don't know where the exit is. What am I going to do now? So I decide that I'm going to go out.
Speaker 3:I don't hear anything outside where I just came from, so I'm going to go back out.
Speaker 3:I'm going to see if I hear something, if there's, and I'm essentially going to try to go back out the way I came in, if that area is clear. If it's not clear and I remember thinking this if it's not clear or I hear something, I'm going to retreat back into the kitchen. I'm going to anticipate that he's going to come in and I'm going to. This would be the frying pan strategy. Right, I'm going gonna look for a frying pan or something and try to zonk him when he comes in. You know, hoping that that's plan b, hoping that's not the case. But I got back out there, I listened, I looked around. I didn't hear anything, I didn't see anything. I ran immediately, sprinted out the front door, I ran down the street, was able to reunite with uh, with my wife. So you, you know, you talk about like in extremis. Everything that you guys saw came back to me in that application, and not not because I remembered it all, but because I had been doing it on a regular basis, including that night.
Speaker 2:So that's, that's a couple of things, a couple of things that anybody, yeah, go ahead Real quick.
Speaker 1:So one that's an incredible story and there's a lot. I think we're going to jump into that and I appreciate you for sharing it, because it's always not a good feeling when you're in a gunfight and you don't have a gun and you were unaware that this gunfight was going to happen. Right, it's one thing if you know your, your army Ranger, like actually Ranger bat, and so you know you, you you have some of that, but that's not really what you're relying on in any of this, right, so you have some exposure, which I love. Your wife goes hey, was that fireworks, was that? And you're like, no, no, that was definitely not Right. So there, you got some things working against you, but I did want to hit two things real quick that you hit up when you're talking about your intro One with I didn't want to gloss over because we'll get into it a little bit later, but your work at New York City Department of Corrections and training programs and implementing new policy and procedures.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't have much experience in New York City, but I grew up in Chicago and understanding how politics work and how different influencers and to get stuff done is like I would rather go work with the you know different clans in Afghanistan and try to get them to do something that I would going into New York city and trying to get everyone on the same page. And then the other thing you talk about like the hey, I wish I'd met you guys sooner. That's similar to like what my my wife says to me sometimes I wish I'd met you sooner because then I was younger and I wouldn't have settled for you. So I understand kind of like where you're going with that, but buyer's remorse.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. Pre-event indicators yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So go ahead, greg, let's jump into it.
Speaker 2:I think it's funny that Brian and I parallel our thinking a lot. So the first comment I wrote down is Brian's first comment, which sounds like gunshots. You would be surprised at how many times we're doing a post-incident interview and people say, well, it sounded like balloons or a car backfiring, and it never. The context and the relevance were all screwed up. What happened is, you know, your system said I don't want to believe this is in progress, and certainly your wife's did. But then you quickly realized hey, in this context that's most likely gunfire, based on a number of factors. Second part was I'd never heard of Rikers Island having such a robust program run by an inmate, so you're to be applauded for that, doing that in general population.
Speaker 2:While you're in sconce there, nobody gets to go home. Exactly, I'm joking there, folks, it was a great accomplishment. And then the final one folks notice. I want you to draw your attention to Dan's story. He abandoned his wife for the entire section because she hadn't attended the training, and then he gets reunited with his wife once things have calmed down and they're safe. So, dan, how did that work out for you?
Speaker 3:How did that conversation go, oh my.
Speaker 2:God, I can imagine being a fly on a wall for that one, thanks you assholes.
Speaker 3:Thanks a lot, guys. Yes, exactly, I'm glad your training helped you be more survivable in this instance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she has another.
Speaker 3:Her side in coming out of this was actually there was a rectangular bar. I ended up going around one side and ended up in the kitchen. She went around the other side and started the gunman. So her side of the story is that the gunman is looking for this guy, but he's brandishing his weapon. You look behind you and that's the person you see. So you're right, that wasn't a pleasant conversation.
Speaker 2:So go there for just a minute, because here's the problem with the charlatans, here's the problem with the glad handers that are all over talking about the types of hey, you know, I once led my wife to the store, so now I'm a leadership consultant. What's going to happen is they're going to look at the story and they're going to say, yeah, it would be nice to believe if it was true. Okay, so were the police called? Was it an actual shooting? What did you find out about the case afterwards that solidified your resolve that this was a no shit incident that you were involved in in real time?
Speaker 3:Sure, I can send anyone the articles if they want one. They've got pictures outside of afterwards and that people nearby took pictures and me and my wife are in the pictures outside. But yeah, they did come. They cordoned it off. The police came, they were searching. They actually found the weapon, they found the assailant and that case is proceeding through the judicial system.
Speaker 2:And was somebody injured during this shooting?
Speaker 3:No, there were shots fired. Oh, I'm sorry, I apologize. Yes, yes, big one actually. So one of the reasons that they had blocked the other door was because they were getting ready to charge cover and so there was a single standing line. So as we attempted to exit, there's a young lady standing immediately on the outside of the sidewalk. She was shot in the head. Yeah, so I just mean to interrupt.
Speaker 2:And the reason I brought that up, dan, is I'm familiar with the case and the idea was that you only glossed over that because, again, you went down and in Okay, the up and out was all the things that were happening externally, and the idea was that your focus led you to safety and your wife instead latched on like a lamprey to the shooter and followed the shooter around.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying it was a bad strategy. Exactly Now in the longer term of evolution.
Speaker 3:You get what? I'm trying to say I don't have to run the fair right.
Speaker 1:I don't want your wife hating me Right there if I'm stuck in that situation. I want to pick a side. I mean, whose side are you picking right there in the right, right there? If I'm stuck in that situation, I want to pick a side. I mean, whose side are you picking right?
Speaker 2:there and if I'm running alongside the gunman, I'd say you're misunderstood, you get what I'm trying to say that guy deserved it. I'm telling you.
Speaker 3:I'm just saying yeah the most surreal moment is when I turn around in the kitchen I see I recognize that the guy in there with me is the one being pursued. He sees me, me, we make eye contact and he says we got to get out of here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. The understatement of the year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's already trying to co-opt other people. We're in this together. It's like dude, I don't know you, that guy ain't looking for me, bro, yeah, so you're going up on a stage to speak you, so you're going up on a stage to speak.
Speaker 2:You got the audience. That's ready. It's the luncheon for the journalist, all that other stuff.
Speaker 3:And you notice you got toilet paper hanging from your shoe.
Speaker 2:Well, that's exactly the same feeling you get when you check your six in the kitchen and you find out that the guy's fleeing from the gunman. It's latched to you. Think of the luck, think of the gravity, the inertia that had to occur, that both you and your wife were just out for a drink, and all of these situations happened. And see, the problem sometimes, dan, is that when we teach military and when we teach police and those folks are used to getting in a scrum you had zero expectation of scrum. When you went out, you were going to a bar, it was a local bar, you were going to have some dinner and you know what.
Speaker 2:The shit happened around you and therefore involved you and Brian and I try to tell that to a lot of people whether you're a teacher or whether you're a student, or whether you're HR or anything else, these are the incidents that you're really training for the jack in the box. That's completely unexpected. So when you gave yourself a report card because you're an intellectual and an academic when you gave yourself a report card, what did you like? What didn't you like?
Speaker 3:Well, I'll say, and so I say, just to be accurate, I don't consider myself an academic per se, but I consider myself somebody that's interested in the body of research that's out there and how it can be applied as a practitioner. So that's just, that's my perspective. What I would say is I definitely afterwards see that the proverbial walls were closing in on me. I did not remain completely prefrontal cortex. Oh, that's this, that's this, that's this. And in fact, I could feel in a sense that your limbic system saying like, all right, buddy, I got it, this is my time. I'm saying like, just hold on, I can, I can handle this, I can handle this.
Speaker 3:So what I liked was that I managed to stay, even though the probably my, my world or the focus came in, that I managed to stay, processing it from a prefrontal standpoint. That's, that's a big thing. Now, where did I? Where did I go wrong or what? I completely lost visibility and awareness of my wife, absolutely, and we talked about that. So so I don't, and I, I, I don't know where that came from, or maybe you guys can help explain, but that's the biggest one, right, there was still a part of me that fled, only thinking about, you know, my survival, let's say, and I would have loved to have said, grabbed her and said hey, come with me, we're going this way.
Speaker 2:So that's the part where I say you know, I think, it's interesting because I think you have the myth of the prefrontal cortex and, Dan, I'm never going to second guess you, I wasn't there. But the idea is that you thought that you were still in control and making decisions, and I would tell you that's what you reflected upon, I would say, in the moment your limbic was in full operation. And then, when you had the gift of time and distance afterwards and you reviewed it in your head, you said oh, here's where I made a choice. I think part of the proof I would offer for that is the fact that you did in fact abandon your wife. Let's not play this episode forever.
Speaker 2:But the idea is there when we think about this who's the most important person in our universe we are. It's not our baby, it's not our wife, it's not our dog. Everybody loves to think that. But again, those are points of reflection. In the moment, the idea is that your survival system is geared towards you. Okay Now, larger allegory of the cave. Of course I want my tribe to survive, but not in warfare. That's hand to hand In warfare, that's hand to hand. If I don't survive, my seed doesn't go forward. And at that exact moment, you are on impulse power, you are down and in, you are completely on an internal and you were in survival mode. So later, when things calm down, and now, months later than the incident, you reflect upon it and what do you do? You give yourself the Jason Bourne. Well, clearly, I'd let everyone into safety and I was the one playing the violin on the deck.
Speaker 2:No, no, and that's not an insult, Dan.
Speaker 1:That's how we process critical incidents and to archive it so we don't drive ourselves crazy.
Speaker 3:How you justify your own behavior right.
Speaker 2:Exactly because you don't want to say I was scared, shitless and I peed a little, you don't want to ever do those things. Right Now you would do that in the moment in there with that guy you know in the kitchen. Go, holy shit, I'm peeing, okay, but you're not going to do that. An hour additional training that you received from the U S army and from the Ranger bat and from you know your time on Rikers and all those other things. They helped inform your limbic. So when you went full on limbic, those experiences came to the forefront Exactly Instead of one you had three, you know, so totally agree.
Speaker 3:Brian, I don't feel like you can tell me this is maybe a limbic system is taken over, right, whatever, and but you're still getting some data is? I recall, even when so I fled, but I knew I wasn't fleeing away necessarily, I had a target in mind. Let's say, when I came out, realized I had a dead end, I knew I had to, I had another. If then, I, I'm going to do this and if then and if not, so tell me. Is that part of the conscious? Because it made sense making I had to go out and sample, right, right, but stop for a minute thinking stop thinking like an intellectual for just a second and think like a Neanderthal.
Speaker 2:Take a giant evolutionary step back.
Speaker 1:Where in your story this is right? No, no.
Speaker 2:Hold on. Where in your story did the? Oh, by the way, the girl got shot in the head. Oh, by the way, the guy with the gun was running next to my wife behind the other side of the bar. Those things were afterthoughts. You know why they were afterthoughts Because you had lived them and they're no longer relevant to the survival steps you took previous to them.
Speaker 2:Do you get what I'm trying to say and your brain is in a loop that's not going to go back to those points until later, until the survival was taken care of, and now you have to become the hero of your own story. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Because if you don't control the narrative, you feel powerless, and that's why it came off. Oh yeah, yeah, by the way, she was shot in the head. Oh yeah, my wife.
Speaker 2:I found her outside why I didn't describe them on my initial narrative Precisely because it would have been a story had you done it at the beginning, and I would have been suspect. I would have been suspect. Was he really there, or is this something he read? Was he across the street at a cafe? But that's the way the brain works, and so those things were deeper. Do you get what I'm trying to say in your unconscious mind? And didn't show up until later. So good training is going to allow you to reflect on those. So an instructor-led AAR after the incident would have been much more helpful than a Dan-led AAR after Dan's incident.
Speaker 2:Do you get what I'm trying to say? Because then you are going to build those moats and walls and barricades and barriers, and that sometimes inhibits learning. So if you're a cop out there and you're listening to me and you think you just got involved in a scrum and you think that you can survive it without external intervention, you're wrong. You need peer review. This is where, the only time, I'll advocate peer review. You'll also need a professional to unpack some of those things and you'll have to go back to a trainer and go here's the choices I think I made, and here's the actual choices I made. Where's the disconnect? Do you get what I'm trying to say, because now, if you had to relive that incident, dan, think of all your things you would have done differently. You did great. You did great in the survival situation. Everything was wonderful. But those things that you thought about afterwards now would have been considerations. You would have earlier armed yourself even with a street tool. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Yeah, even when.
Speaker 3:I went back into the kitchen, I didn't grab a frying pan. Initially there were knives and there were tools. Right, Exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:And you never interviewed the guy. You would have done a brief street interview, grabbing him and going what am I up against? Is there five of them or one of them?
Speaker 3:Do you see those type of things that we're talking about now?
Speaker 2:So training becomes an in-progress loop and it becomes an update. So so you can't walk away from that and just tell the story without each time you tell them the story, you're making some shit up. But what are the key takeaways that I can learn to make myself stronger? Right, and in two years that story is going to take on a life of its own. You know, you had the choking baby that you had to contend with and all that other stuff. That's just how our memory works.
Speaker 1:Each time you visit, you're in the kitchen Exactly. Fire back there.
Speaker 2:The shooter was after you.
Speaker 3:You get what I'm trying to say, I think it's this order that was still on the on the skillet. Yeah Well you, you never brought up what you drank.
Speaker 2:You never brought up what you ate. You never brought up those why? Because they're ancillary to the central point and your amygdala doesn't give a shit about those Right.
Speaker 1:And that would take a long time. That highlighting that point is even like oh yeah, actually a woman was shot in the head.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Jesus, dan, that's the most chaotic part of getting at too is like that is a completely normal way to think. I'm sure if your wife had ended up in the kitchen with you, you would have been able to say, all right, babe here, stay behind me or do this or go over there. But it didn't, and you didn't have control of those circumstances. She goes left, you go right. Well then, that's it. It evolves, and if that connection isn't made right away, then you're both of your brains and because she I guarantee she wasn't thinking of where's Dan?
Speaker 2:She was thinking of how do I get out of here you know, what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:So so I it's, it's, it's very powerful how that stuff happens. And then Greg brought up a good point, that sort of reflecting on something. It's tough reflecting as yourself, because it's only everything's going to come through.
Speaker 2:You know my, it's my internal baseline and how I want to see myself, and part of that isn't?
Speaker 1:you know, people think, like you know, one being an eyewitness. You know, giving an eyewitness testimony is you're, you're never going to be very accurate, even when you're trying really hard. Right, and so people, then you know, your story changes so you can cope with it. Your brain's doing that for you. You're not, you're not trying to embellish or negate something wrong that you did, you're just your brain's going ah, let's, let's remember it this way, cause that's an easier way to process it.
Speaker 1:And then, depending on what happens, you know, if, like you, you, you, that that could corrupt you even more, oh, my God, I didn't do enough. And now I have PTS from it because I have some sort of survivor's guilt. I mean, that's how that stuff kind of starts to take place, and you don't really have a say in it in the moment, but you kind of do as a, as a, as a reflection point. And so I was, like Greg, your, your point of you know that, uh, an AAR led by someone this is almost why, like you know, a police officer asking you questions about it, okay, well, when then? Then let's walk through then. Where did you go next Then? Then, oh, now it's coming back because you're replaying it in your mind, versus you just trying to. Hey, let me write up my statement and send you what happened.
Speaker 1:It's like well, no if I lead you through it, I'm going to get better information out of you and you're going to be able to recall more, so this is a good point.
Speaker 2:And Brian too. To that end, Brian and I worked on a number of studies that were with ONR and ARI, Army Research Institute and Office of Naval Research A lot of the stuff that had a fringe that went to suicide and Brian worked with me on those programs. And then it went to PTS and Brian worked with me on those programs and we were from completely, vastly different backgrounds. But the idea is what we were trying to get at is how the brain processed the information and if you get a chance to relive it in the moment and then call attack, freeze and change the outcomes and give yourself different options, your brain likes that. Your brain likes to understand now that, hey, there's Waldo, you know solving the Sudoku, Because if not, you're constantly second guessing those and undermining your own choices.
Speaker 2:And, Dan, that's a primary reason that Brian and I didn't push. We waited till you were ready to relate that story, to put it on the show. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Had we done it too close? There were times that you and your wife didn't want to talk about it, and you certainly didn't want to talk about it and you were becoming emotional over it. And you know what. We're not going to get anything good out of that.
Speaker 2:So, let's give it the time to heal and then let's unpack and I like unpack because after action review I get it, but I feel so clinical Right, but what we're doing is just unpacking the incident from different perspectives. Have you been to that restaurant since you know?
Speaker 3:I mean, okay, I made it a point to go to that restaurant.
Speaker 2:That's brilliant.
Speaker 3:And to walk through those steps, I sat in the same and I'm going to sit in the exact same place. Yes, absolutely within a week. But there was some resistance from my wife to ever go back. Why do we ever? Go back there and I said, because this is our narrative and the narrative is not, as far as I'm concerned, not going to be. And then I never went back there again.
Speaker 2:You own your narrative and you know that the idea is that you took an active role in your survival, so you're a survivor, and that's hugely important to revisit. See, the one thing about going to training is that if you never use that training, is that training efficient? Is it effective? You know, has it built anything other than your confidence? And you're one of the few people. Look, I've been with coppers that had a 30-year career, that never drew their gun except on a shooting range. Brian was with Marines who deployed, who never saw combat, as amazing as that seems. Your story is now different, right? So what are you going to do with that? And then, just my Brian. I know you've got an additional, but my final question, dan, for you to think about, and it's a compound one that you don't need to answer today what parts of the training that you received do you remember just being right there at the forefront? Do you get what I'm trying to say? Because if you were overwhelmed during it, then none of the training was sufficient. Make sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. I know the answer to that already and so I'll just say this it's what you guys have said Start out with, just start building the baseline, go out there and start just just naming things. So we, you know, you guys, it's big concept of being you can't be down and in the idea of, like, I'm on my cell phone I'm thinking about what happened yesterday did I leave the burner on? You know, that's all down and in, and if you're being, you know you guys have said, if you're being up and out, if you're naming things in your environment and processing them, then you can't be down in it. You know, and and that's so that is the thing that I had been doing. Oh look, that's a white car, that's a white car, that's a Hyundai, it's a white car, that's a Hyundai, that's a late model, that's a white Hyundai, late model, hyundai, late model. Oh shit, there's somebody in that car. You know, like that's that.
Speaker 3:So I was so on that night, the, the geographics, we'll say, were static, like I, I like. So when I came, like when I was making my reactions, I already knew the door was locked, for example. So I knew I had limited egress, the and the reason. I didn't think, you know, it was so calm. I didn't think it was like a big gun battle at any point, because people would have cleared the streets had there been like multiple gangs, right, it would have been a different atmospheric shift. Let's say so.
Speaker 1:That's why I was going to say that, like there wasn't like gunfire back and forth, there weren't people screaming everywhere, there wasn't loud other commotion. It was like almost these single static thing, that like each thing kind of sound running this almost linear, so like there is a little bit of time in there. So you didn't get that overwhelming feeling so that, so that it didn't feel like there were some oh, this is it like we're?
Speaker 3:I'm done here right, it wasn't like an external stampede, right, you say holy shit, it was actually just internal to the bar, triggered by that one person. If I was outside I might have thought, huh, it sounds like there's something going on in in that bar, but the atmospherics outside, where there was very gentle wave, let's say so. So, greg, what, what and I would say to anybody that's picking this up is, if you're building the baseline, you may think like, oh, I don't know the whole thing, I don't know the whole thing, I don't know the whole system, but every little bit helps. And if there were six things that I need to know on that night, I already knew three of them because I was just doing it actively, I was actively processing those things that you guys are teaching, and so that's the part that made it less of a load to actually make my decisions.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about that. Let's talk about reducing cognitive load and not resorting to discovery learning. When you witnessed them lock the back door, that was significant to you. Not only did you recognize it, you noticed it, but you had a level of interest. I wonder why they're doing that. And then you solve for X by saying oh, I see they're going to have one point of entry so they can charge, because it's later in the day. All that stuff happened in nanoseconds, and the reason that, that's Creating an explanatory story For that robust, fidelity-filled baseline.
Speaker 2:That's a thing that you learn how to do and then you become better at it. Imagine the discovery learning of you going back and finding out that door was locked while you were running. Now we're going back at the jack-in-the-box and everything is popping up, and now guess what that does to your feedback loop. Now you've got inhibitions within the building and now you've got classic obstructions to overcome within your own story. And guess what. You're now on plan C trying to update as quickly as you can, and that gunfire is coming closer.
Speaker 2:The idea is that it didn't have to be. For somebody, that was a fatal event, it didn't. And for somebody else, they're going to go to jail for a good long time. And for a couple of people, they're going to be so traumatized their life is going to be different. So just because it was that and not an armed Sinaloa cartel shootout doesn't mean it was less significant. And the idea is what can we learn from this training and these events? To pay forward for the next person that might go through the looking glass, because that's what this is, I mean you would have never anticipated. Ever. Say hey, baby, before we go out tonight.
Speaker 2:Remember our rally point is Dairy Queen, across the street. That's how I operate, that's how Shelly operates, all the time and everybody goes. That's so weird. And the talking part of it. I learned that from Jack Webb late 50s, early 60s, black and white training when I was going to the police academy. Jack Webb would sit in the passenger seat of a scout car and go. As you're driving around, jack Webb, folks from the Dragnet series and from but Jack Webb would go, guy in the steps, look at this, he's walking out of the store, his hands are free. Hey, there's a guy with a suitcase. He's walking across, he's getting in a cab and he would narrate while he was going. And people are going. Wow, that's situation overload For me. It's not For me. When Brian and I are together, we're constantly doing that and Dan, you've witnessed that. You've Can't talk. I'm pointing, and then we're acknowledging those things in an environment One. It makes life so much more fun.
Speaker 2:Okay, and the second thing is that level of awareness makes sure that you're not caught off guard. You did things, even unconsciously, that helped you succeed through this incident. Where's the exit? Where am I sitting? Those things, everybody does that, you know. But then you said why is that guy locking the door? What are those sounds outside? Does that you know? But then you said why is that guy locking the door? What are those sounds outside? Why is this guy running?
Speaker 2:You've seen people run before, dan, but what was different about his running? You said the look in his eyes, what was different about that? And you've met thousands of Rikers Island inmates that have gone through all kinds of prison, wallet experiments and stuff. So you knew those kinds of looks, yeah, and you knew what those meant. So the idea is that you, using your intimate knowledge of a situation and the training and using the situation at hand to say I have anomalous behavior in progress and therefore it drives my decision. And guess what? This isn't an ML. I can see by the people running and hiding. It's not a most likely course of action. So what does this most dangerous course of action mean to me now, at this time and at that place? And this is the first time I've heard the entire story.
Speaker 2:I've only heard pieces of it and it just becomes abundantly clear that you're the right kind of person for this. This training enhanced what you already have, naturally, and took you to that next level.
Speaker 3:Well, I'll say you know my wife, it's my wife, she's. She's a New Yorker, she grew up there, she's. She's very good at this type of stuff innately. She, just she, she has it to me. Almost some of these, these cues, might I might have missed them before, from an aptitude standpoint, I think, when we talk about creating like a framework, that's, that's where you know what, what you do, what the two of you guys do as experts, is you have this framework right, you have this model, and that's why it's so easy to pick these things, because it's your thousandth instant.
Speaker 3:But even having a framework to slot this in and be able to start practicing it gives coherence. I would say it gives language to something that doesn't have a name initially. So it's almost like when we learn emotions, we say oh, we eventually learn like I'm angry, I'm sad. We associate labels to our internal states and when I think about this, that's what it is, it's given me language to process and label internal states, to allow me, in a sense, to communicate with myself, right and then and then say that's this, that's this, that's this, that's normal or it's typical, that's not typical. I pay attention to this. So I'm a very process driven person and for anyone else is that that is. It's like it gives you the template to just start plugging in and practicing.
Speaker 3:And you know, I I'll see somebody get out of the car, or she's out, she's has flip flops on and she's got her keys in her hand. So where's my explanatory story? I think that she's going to, potentially, a coffee shop within a block and she's planning on coming right back, because otherwise, why she keep her keys in her hand? And I look at her shoes, I say those certainly aren't walking shoes, and so I create, and so that's just it. So, but it's a, it's an entire framework that that anyone, including a person like me who's not a public safety individual right, I'm not out there on the front lines doing that work, but it shows that it's applicable because it's it's human, it's human behavior, it's we're, we're, we're all the same in these critical ways, and you just got to spend enough time to to practice recognizing it after you've been taught.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is. Did you have anything?
Speaker 2:Cause I I very, very briefly on Dan's comment. Brian, listen, dan, one of the things I got a huge arguments with ONR and ARI and all the other think tanks. I take KSAs and I make them KSAs to the third. So it's knowledge, skills and attitudes, aptitudes and abilities. And most say knowledge, skills and abilities. Yeah, I get that.
Speaker 2:But the idea is your attitude is a survival mechanism, okay, your aptitude and attitude combined to reinforce your abilities and either help you or become that anchor to draw you back. And so when you train the whole brain, you train the whole person. You know anger and and and fear and love are so closely linked that your brain can't tell the difference. Your brain understands that. There's an electrochemical neurotransmitter that's saying now go, look, watch, and that's why we're drawn to watching people fighting or watching people fornicating. There's a cultural imperative, there's a survival mechanism triggered in our brain that goes way back to the earliest days, and so training has to understand that, because if not, you're just flipping tires and climbing the rope, you're just putting rounds down range, and that's not enough. It may feel like enough, you know, but that goes back to the argument.
Speaker 2:Well, 10,000 reps and that's all horse shit. 10,000 reps, 10,000 steps All these are are things that people make up to make themselves feel better. But you got to go back. You got to take a giant evolutionary step backwards and see for yourself what works and what doesn't. Right. That's priceless. That really is Sorry, brian.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I, I. This is I appreciate you sharing the story and kind of being able to break it down that way and, like I said, this is the first time I heard it all, but I did want to get to kind of some of the other stuff you talked about in your intro and kind of what you're doing with us. So you know, you're what we brought on, dan as the vice president of training, innovation and performance, right? So you have this background in instructional design and human performance technology and you know, typically in my experiences with sector and how they were talking about it and most of what I learned, I was like, okay, this is well-intentioned and this is bullshit, or it's not going to work, or this isn't training and this is all theoretical based. And you're saying it's almost like I have a with, like when they're going oh well, we got to.
Speaker 1:You know you need better mental health and that'll help out. It's like, well, okay, like yes, I'm all for everyone getting better mental health and how we talk about it, absolutely, but what the fuck does that have to do with the mission of your organization? What you do? It doesn't like. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:It's like maybe some of the mental health reasons, because you have shitty leadership and they're not being managed and led correctly and so people aren't feeling incentivized and they're down on their job because of all these issues over here, not because there's something wrong with their fucking mental health. You know what I'm saying, but that's just one example that's popped my head. But you have this whole background in this in structural design, human performance, technology, and when we first started meeting and talking, there was a lot of stuff that we really, really agreed upon at sort of a philosophical level about training and about education, learning and performance and measurement and what these conversations you and I have been having you know that are like I mean, it's mind numbing. I really have to like all right, dan, I'm done, I got to go lift some weights now.
Speaker 1:Because that's too much. I actually woke up in mental sweat as well. Is that the dictionary you're reading? No, but it's really good and you're deliberate and you ask great questions and you cut through bullshit because you want to get to that point, because everything has to have a purpose and meaning and a reason in a sense, and it's all tied to what your performance is. It's not tied to how you did on the fucking test. I don't care what your multiple choice test was wrong, I care if you did it correctly. I don't care if you remembered the word I use. Did you make the right decision and were you able to articulate it? And that's what it comes down to. And so there was, there was a lot of that that we agreed upon and cause. There's a lot of really, really well-intentioned, poor training out there, and that's the my, my, the most you know a a political, nonpartisan way to say it.
Speaker 1:And it's just like there's a lot of people wasting a lot of time and I feel bad because they they really want to make a change and they're really trying to do good, but they don't know.
Speaker 3:So you're bringing in this outside capability and you're you're a little skeptical is what I hear up front.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, yeah, up front, like I am with everything, though, like it's like okay, we'll fucking prove it.
Speaker 1:and then the way you talk about, I was like, oh no, dan gets it, he just has a way better lexicon and a way better understanding of how to explain it to an organization and to a person in charge and to this, than I can, because I have my own experience and my tacit knowledge where I can say, yes, I agree with that, but I can't always tell you why, because I just go well, I just fucking know that's going to work and your shit sucks and it's like well, you can't, obviously I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't say that to people unless it reaches a threshold where they pissed me off. But that takes a lot, right, but, but, but you know, I, I, you. What I'm getting at is I would like you to talk about that background and what you bring to the, to the, to the table here, and what that means and how important it is to look at these sort of outcomes based on what you're going with and starting with that, versus oh, this is what I think happened. So let's get you know, the new thing on our web belt to put on there, or the new computer system, or the new camera, right, it's like we go to those things, but we go to those things with the G right, because we can point to them, but you start from a completely different kind of place. So I'd like you to kind of talk to listeners about what that is and about you know your process and how you do it.
Speaker 3:Sure, I think that's. So. There's a couple of things you mentioned that I think are relevant here. In one human, what is human performance improvement? Human performance improvement is kind of a an umbrella. It a research-based body of evidence that includes training but also includes a number of drivers that are performance-based. So, and it starts always with looking at an organization and the job role and then the tasks and responsibilities within that. So that's where you start, and I think typical training starts in reverse. It starts they've got learning objectives, training objectives, and then somehow from there they're going to try to fit it into performance if they can, and then organizational outcome. It just doesn't work that way and I think also they don't. Even traditional learning and development doesn't have a proficiency-based lens. They have more of a development lens, right, like here's some information, or you're going to go digest it. They have more of a development lens, right, like here's some information, or you're going to go digest it and it's going to manifest in some way.
Speaker 3:Well, I look at it as an HPT does, as kind of a third party, third party system. In the same way, k through 12 is you send someone to training and, just because you know, my eight-year-old comes back and says you know, second grade is awesome, like, what did you do? Like, well, we just we have free time a lot. We're like well, that's not, that's not why I'm sending you to school. I'm sending you to school to learn to read and write. You know these proficiencies right. And so HPT takes that same approach.
Speaker 3:Actually, we look at the stakeholders. The person going to training certainly is a stakeholder, but they're not the sponsor, let's say so. Our, our whole perspective is from an organizational perspective. What is this person's job, what are they supposed to be performing and what does good look like? Because then you can start looking at well, how are you measuring that? And in a public safety standpoint, they'll say, oh, you know, I wish our, our, our police reports were better. These suck, I don't know what this even means. Or our satisfaction scores with our customers, with our, you know, the community. We'd like them to be higher, we'd like to have less use of force, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3:So once you start having organizational conversations, they can point to metrics. That will be that will inform their performance, and those things lead then okay, from there. How does that involve the role, how does that involve the task? How does that, and then the skill and the proficiency level. One of the things that you all offer is an expert based model, so it's something that we can look at, that's robust in the sense that you can say, okay, for somebody that's new to the field or new to the skill, what is what is good look like, and then somebody that's two years or four years in and it scales from there and we have the ability to adapt our instructional processes. So, big picture, that's what we're trying to do.
Speaker 3:We're using learning as the tool or the medium, but it's not the end. The end is the performance, and we start there and I think that's fundamentally something that's mirrored in the training. And you all use a. Whether you realize or not, it's a scientific approach, right it's? If this were true, then I should have this, this, this, to be able to, you know, stack it up as evidence, and that's that's exactly what we're doing. We're we're coming up with those metrics in advance, having a conversation about desired results at the organizational performance level and then saying, okay, did we move the needle or not? And that is just. You can't get there using a traditional instructional or learning and development approach. So that's how I see, kind of one of our differentiators and why we can say we're an enterprise level solution in the same way that getting a new system of cars or getting a new computer system. We are a human resource, enterprise capability.
Speaker 2:One argument I would make for all the street trucks like me out there.
Speaker 2:What Dan just said is show us your work. What he just said is that we show our work and it doesn't matter what the answer or the outcome is. It matters the process that you got there, because then you'll make better decisions. Just said is that we show our work and it doesn't matter what the answer or the outcome is. It matters the process that you got there, because then you'll make better decisions and your answers will become better because you'll have that gift of time and distance. I love the way you put it. The only argument I would make, dan, when you said what does good like look like and greg speak, I would say what does good enough look like would be fair. Or what does right look like, because the expert model has to set conditions right, because task condition standards. I get it. Yeah, you're, you're, you're showing me your process. That doesn't guarantee outcomes. That guarantees that the process will be followed right, but the process has to have feedback loops into the human actor.
Speaker 2:So that human knows where they are along that process so they can update that information and go. I'm on thinner ice than I was. I got to take a knee, I got to go back, I got to take cover and I've yet to see another program. Well, I'll tell you what I've seen, one that withstood my. Tell you what I've seen, one that withstood my not that I'm anybody, but my rigorous standard, and that was Arbinger.
Speaker 2:So the cool thing about Jack Caldwell is I knew of Jack before I actually finally met him down in Texas and we both didn't know each other and he came up completely saying, okay, so if this is where this system started, I want to meet you and Brian. And how long did we spend, brian, talking to them, unpacking where this has come from? So, dan, your process is literally epitomizing what it is that we've tried to do. By showing anybody that's a business owner, check writer or wants to guarantee the legal, moral and ethical outcomes of the unit you're showing them. This is how it's done and it just happens to be that our system follows that and the parts of our system that didn't you're going through and updating now to ensure compatibility. Is that a fair assessment?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And one thing I would add to that is that fundamentally we're a criterion referenced organization right. So we have evidence and traditional training is going to send you to training for an hour or two hours or four hours, and that's part of our challenge to helping organizations on behalf of the practitioner, that public safety officer that's in there, that him or her getting better at a particular skill is not a function of time, it's a function of proficiency. To that level of standard you're talking about Greg, and, and, and we can, because we can show our math. We can advocate for the. Not longer. Maybe sometimes it's shorter. You don't need two days for this, you only need a day. But it's because you need to spend this much time on this. They need to have an opportunity to to process it, make sure that they're understanding it and then get some level of practice proficiency before they go out the door.
Speaker 2:It can't be just a certificate mill where you say you were exposed to this material for 40 hours, well, that's wonderful. But if there wasn't a rehearsal and a practice and an internal thought process where you got to reflect on the training that you were doing, those are all absolutely essential to adult learning and retention.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and learning education is only coming around now and I mean there's just been this ton of work that you know everybody. You can see that people are goal-based. You see it in public safety. Even officers sometimes that come in first will fill up the back rows right.
Speaker 3:So there's a strategy there right, and it's based on their experience. I don't want to get called on, I don't want to be spotlighted, I don't want to be embarrassed, right? So they're coming around to the idea that, oh, these learners are not just like, we can't just shove information down their skulls. We have to account for the fact that they're all thinking people, right, they have agency, and unless we can develop training in a way that shows that they've processed it and are able to show us that it's theirs now, right, because, like you said, you want them to be able, we're teaching people how to be, how to think independently, exactly, in extremis, right?
Speaker 2:Exactly. And Dan, you were there, brian, you were there too. Remember coming out of the academy and the first thing your first FTO says forget every fucking thing that you learned, because you're on the street now. And then you got out of FTO and you're on the road with your first senior vet partner. Forget every fucking thing that you learned. Hey, you're not at Parris Island anymore, marine, you know you're in the shit. The problem is that those things have to exist together. If they don't exist together, then your knowledge isn't experiential. And and, yes, there's a difference between training and education, but they have to be in line, because if they're not, then your brain doesn't understand that those goals are aligned and therefore it's going to jettison what it doesn't think it needs an extremist. And if you do that.
Speaker 2:You're again with that gosh damn jack in the box. All of of a sudden you're at that back door, Dan, and it's locked, and that's a fucking shitty place to be. That's not my business card by the way.
Speaker 3:What you acknowledge is that people have choice, and I've seen it now in the course that we have designed opportunities for people to decide. Yeah, that makes sense. Actually, I do that. I don't do that. Yes, I'm willing to accept that.
Speaker 3:So it's almost implicit in the course design that people come in and, regardless of whether what we're training is true or not, they still have to be willing to accept it if it's going to be effective, and I think that's one of the being an expert in the field yourself. That's something that's implicit in the training. I think it's it's very powerful and we see on day two and day three, participants is one of the things I do is I sit at the tables a lot and so what you're saying is that I'm part of this process or I'm partially responsible for the outcome. It's a rhetorical question and the follow up question might be like well, what makes you say that? But that's a great sign that and we're putting in mechanisms that's going to trigger for those that are willing to start having those conversations with themselves. So I think that's critical.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and your use of true. Again, I'm a word guy, so your use of true, whether it's true or not, what that means is in your Hoberman sphere, in your brain, in your experience. Whether you've had this happen or whether you understand this knowledge, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that you're a white belt. What you have to do is understand that other people have had these experiences and therefore, the artifacts and evidence, you can cherry pick those, you can create experiences from them that you can pay forward and and that becomes a truth.
Speaker 2:The lemon shark attack. You know, I know my truth. So the the idea is, when you go there, exactly when you go through and you're sitting with them, they're telling you their story and if their story aligns with the outcomes of the course, and they can carry that back with them and use it on the street. What a powerful time expenditure and what's the money worth. You know I don't know where people come up with, how much they charge, but you know we're not charging enough and and you know when, when we're in class. It's proved to me every day when those people come up and go hey, I remember you, I did this. These things happen and Brian and I get inundated with emails where people say I'm using this every day. Nothing makes me more proud of the legacy that we've created through the training, because it's not us, it's the training and how far it can take an organization.
Speaker 1:One of the things and maybe you can kind of help both you, greg and Dan, but like what I will typically see and this is like without getting into all the reasons why we do it, you know, with with confirmation bias and sort of fundamental attribution errors, but we'll see okay, this person is really good at their job. You know they're this is the ideal person, or this is what they're. And then we go well, what is it that they do? It's like well, man, they're number one on the PT test. They can outshoot everyone. They're the stud on the mat. You know what I mean? They can drive in reverse better than I can drive forward, right.
Speaker 1:And so we look at those skills and go okay, it must be these things that we need to be more proficient at. And my thing is like yeah, that person's all great at that stuff, but the PT standard doesn't help you make better decisions. Yes, you want the better shape you're in, you can go into that, but when we're talking about in extremis decisions, in a sense, a lot of that kind of goes out the window and isn't really going to affect it. It's. Can you think through the problem? And when did you actually recognize that you were even having a problem?
Speaker 2:And are you thinking through the right problem?
Speaker 1:You're exactly right, and that's the thing, and so I think there's a lot of and I know you brought that up when it. Well, how are you measuring it? Because we'll see that we're like, all right, we want to get them to do this, we got them to do that, and then we're like, okay, yeah, we can train people how to do that and how to see those things and better articulate it. But, like, what are you looking for as an outcome? What are you trying to measure here? It's like, oh well, we get all these complaints from people about this thing no-transcript, and I I'm not exactly sure where the question is. There's just my trying to way of articulate like these are the things we need to look at. This is the problem. That that's. I understand that you think that's happening every day, because maybe it is, but but that's actually not a contributing factor to this issue over here.
Speaker 2:Dan. I'd like to go second and I'd also like to bring to everybody's attention. Dan was on the advisory board not to glad hand us and pat us on the back and tell us how good we were doing, but to step in a room and go time out here. Why did you say that? Why was that slide used? Where are you thinking?
Speaker 3:So, dan, you can be as critical as you want in your response and I'll go second if it's okay, sure. So one of the things you said, brian, like the indicators of what's happening, but I think what's really hard for organizations and even individuals is to recognize that what's not happening is also a valid form of measurement. So if it's and sometimes you got to be creative it's okay. We had X number of pursuits and we caught the bad guys or whatever. But if you say this, these two officers had the same number of tickets and there's like one 10th of the pursuits, so that means nobody fled from them. What are they doing? That's containing the flight.
Speaker 3:You know that that's also a way to look at at at something, a measure of effectiveness. So so that's one thing. It's it's really working with, even with like okay, greg, you'll say sometimes, like people a lot of times have more time than they think they do. So kind of external, like getting people to go deeper in their thought process is is which which then says, oh, we could use this as a measurement. And the flip side of that in training is I'm a big advocate for quote, unquote, show your work, but I like to do it visually.
Speaker 3:So I'm a horrible artist, but imagine if you're training on something and you're telling people describing the key components of a horse and you say, okay, draw. Everybody, it doesn't matter what it looks like, draw the horse. And they draw it Like I draw one with three legs. And so when you walk up and you look at the other, oh, that's interesting, that's where's the fourth leg on this Right. But what Brian said to me once was like I'm just glad that they got three out of the four legs. What are we talking about here? So those are both valid measurements, but done in a way that's actually everybody can look at objectively. So I think those are a couple of ways that we tackle measurement.
Speaker 2:So let me go way off the res I know that's going to surprise both of you to answer the same question that Dan did, and I'd love to show me your work reference, dan, because we're right there together on that. So I had I don't know if it's luxury of dealing with a lot of battalion and brigade commanders in combat zones when they were bringing back body bags and the number one thing about get D to training early and often and make sure that these people are trained for the appropriate skills in combat, which a cognitive portion is a huge piece of that not just shooting and killing and blowing things up and running and jumping what they would do is they would say, no, you're right, reem, so this is the guy I'm going to send to training. And I'd say this guy, you're fucking sending me this guy to training. Yeah, why? Well, because I can't send this guy. He's my XO and he's too essential to the mission. And he can't send that guy because these two guys are his best squad leaders and they're doing.
Speaker 2:So what you end is you give me the sick, fucking lame and lazy. Now they'll still learn something, but what's the impact to your organization when they come back? So the measurement. The longitudinal measurement has to be. What are the outcomes you're seeing on the ground at your agency when you've only had two or three people that you sent to the training? Were they given enough information to impact how things were done? Were they changing the culture of your organization, and was it for the better? Where were the things that you didn't even consider? And all of a sudden you're seeing a difference and you're reading a difference and the community is reacting differently. To me, that's the most important thing. So if you don't spend the money and if you don't send them to training and if you're not sending the right people, then reap the fucking whirlwind.
Speaker 3:And on top of that, I don't think that's so far off. But when you look at Combat Hunter, what was the imperative for that, Greg? When General Mattis says, hey, I need a program for this, didn't he have a reason for it? There were two major reasons. There were two things.
Speaker 2:Two major reasons. One, it was the single most kinetic part of battle and they were losing the most Marines ever in their first contacts when they were going over. So he was doing a duplicitous effort. He wanted combat Back then it was urban hunter. But combat hunter. He said Greg, I don't want anybody going in and being surprised by what they're seeing, even though they're going to a different country that they've never been to and they don't understand the language. And that was easy. Okay, what you're doing is setting up the conditions to say I don't want their first contact on the ground to be any worse in combat than it was here in training before they went. And that was exactly a mandate Brian got at the infantry.
Speaker 2:Immersive training is that? How can we prepare them? And you know what?
Speaker 2:People go down different avenues the smell generator hey, let's get legless vets and have them flop around on the ground in the blood and let's make noises and explosions. And those are all good things. But you know what, at the end of the day, those are not as much as giving me choices. And if I have choices to slow time down, if I understand that, if I give myself a nanosecond here and there, I'll likely come to a better conclusion If I understand that the artifacts and evidence that are adding up around me will give me a picture of what I can expect at the end of it.
Speaker 2:Those are all wonderful things and they start with curiosity and they don't start with intellect, because sometimes we don't get intellectuals. Sometimes they don't hand me somebody that's got a college degree and that person has to be just as prepared as the person next to them that's a PhD to go through that door. So that Mattis was, everybody says, wrong. So I've never heard him called Mad Dog and I'd like you to do that to his face. And then people talk about the warrior monk.
Speaker 2:Mattis was a thinker and Mattis was a combatant commander that wanted less body bags coming back and mattis would ask I'm sorry, mattis would ask all the time which part of this training would you want your son or daughter to take before they deployed? Was it that one? Was it that training? And you know what? Overwhelmingly it was always combat hunter. It was always aset. They wanted to go before their their deployment.
Speaker 3:Sorry yeah, no, no. You made great point, though, that it was a leadership imperative with an organizational outcome that spurred the training where knowledge was the intervention or knowledge is what you needed. You weren't sticking your hand out saying who wants to come to this training. The senior leadership has said this is a priority and we have metrics. We have too many service members dying. Exactly, leadership has said this is a priority and we have metrics. We have too many service members dying and dying because of x, y and z, and I want you to train, train to a performance or criterion outcome. Right. So that's, and that's where we're at with.
Speaker 3:We're saying this is not. Hey, this isn't a great workshop. Guys, glad you got great level one course review. Who cares? Yeah, they want to be proficient, but you need to understand, if you're a senior leader, that this is fulfilling your organizational mission Exactly, with your staff, with the tools and the knowledge they need to be able to effectively and safely do their jobs out there. This isn't just like oh hey, this is a great workshop, this is about fulfilling your mission.
Speaker 2:It's on both sides of the badge, it's on both sides of the site, it's on both sides of that community and it's got to work from your person that doesn't believe in God to the person that's at church every day, to the lowest member of the community that has the least to offer the community and is living in a box, all the way to the chief operating officer from the company. It's got to be everything that everybody can use anytime and that's human to human interaction. So if you start there and you say, okay, here's the right place to start and you say here's the likely outcomes we'd want. We want to build trust in that community, well, we want a safer officer that's less likely to use force unintentionally. We want to deliberately to take and that's what Dan does folks, if you wonder what Dan does with the organization, he gets on there and he goes. Why do you need us? Why do you really want Arcadia? Because this is what Arcadia brings. And if you're buying this, it's not what you think it is, it's not this other thing.
Speaker 2:And I think that because we're so deliberately purpose-built, because we're bespoke for that agency, we change stuff that we do for that agency to make it personal to them, their community, their leadership, their outcomes, and I think that's different too. And somebody's going to say well, you know, a squared plus B squared is also always C squared. Yeah, it is here, but when we get to Mars, shit gets a little sketchy. So the idea is that on your way to the call, things change, and if you're not updating that shit, then you're going to inevitably run into the man with the gun, with your loaded gun, and then you're going to say, wow, a number of people were shot.
Speaker 2:Fucking, surprise, surprise. Can we change that? And the idea is that everybody right now wants to change the culture of police work. Now, what you want to do is you want to update a human to make them a better decision maker under critical stress, and don't you want that for your kid? Don't you want your kid in school to anticipate that shit's going wrong at the lunch room and come home? That's the stuff we're talking about. An advanced critical thinking mindset is different than the type of training that most people are buying and most books that people are investing in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Dan, I wanted to kind of be respectful of your time and everything.
Speaker 3:Well, actually, I don't have to anymore, not anymore. I'm paying you now, so I don't have to be respectful. No, my calendar appears free, brian.
Speaker 2:I have minimum wage.
Speaker 1:So I I do like asking this to to different folks who reach out, because we get a lot of very interesting people that we've either met or listened to the podcast or went through some training and have a really in every kind of different types of background and what they've done and the experience level and and so I always try to ask him I was like, well, what was it? Or was it something that? What makes you so interested in it? Is it some key things that you heard or found or saw? Or, now that you're really getting in, you know underneath the hood and seeing everything that's in there in a sense.
Speaker 1:But, like you know, we always come across we call it early adopters where they kind of have it at hello, where they're like, hey, there's something here and I'm not in this world. I mean, we were just on a call yesterday with someone very similar, like, hey, I'm not from this world and I sat through this course and I still go through my notes a year later and do this. So like I'm curious, is what it? What sort of fascinates you most about hpp rna? Like, what, what is it that kind of drew you in to be like, hey, this is something I want to get heavily involved in, because you have your own background, experience and stuff, and so you know it's like you.
Speaker 2:You chose this and said, no, this is for the money, so don't, we'll know that lie right it's a lucrative field working with you lucrative means you, you uh, eat what you kill.
Speaker 1:I get kill. I get all the holiday and express points I could ever imagine.
Speaker 3:Exactly, that's right. Well, it goes back to a couple of things. It goes back to, I guess, my background. Growing up we were middle class but my parents were retired. They were the first ones to go to. They were the first ones to graduate from high school. My father grew up my father's a rancher. He grew up in Southeast Colorado. He lived in a one bedroom Adobe house that my grandfather built. So you know, we come from like a humble mean. So I think, especially after I got in my mid thirties I was, I was already thinking like I. I, I have a limited amount of time, I have limited amount of resources.
Speaker 3:What is most effective and this came down to the course, even choosing instructional design versus educational psychology is the way my counselors described it. One is descriptive and one is prescriptive. So one, being kind of, explains the situation or tells you what's going on, the other one explains how to do it. It's procedural. So I find, and then, working through the last 12, 15 years, most training is descriptive. You're like oh, that was great, I'm more aware, I know about, I know about this at a better level, but it's not actionable, it didn't give you, it didn't translate into skills. So this didn't. I went to that training. I went, I paid sometimes for training and I'm still not a better. I don't have a better sales approach. I don't have a better. I can't, you know, do this claim any faster.
Speaker 3:So I think my own worldview was what is training or learning, if you think about it? Is it's adaptation, right? It's, when it comes right down to it, it's change for your environment, it's fitness, and so along those lines, I find, or like HBPRNA is a really like, is low. On the bullshit factor. It's not gonna pontificate about why we're the way we are so much or give any, it's just low, slow bullshit, I would say. And it's just the mechanics of what we know actually works. And it's put together in a way that is accessible and we even talk about access in training. It's accessible, anybody can get to it and start using it really really fast. And the fact that it's stable and it's built on these principles that we know are true about how humans behave. And again, that it's stable and it's built on these principles that we know are true about how humans behave. And again, like, there's all these different theories, right, but you guys focus on the autonomic system, that which is. There's nobody's arguing about that. So, like all of it's, it's it's.
Speaker 3:We talk about organizations that are low sophistication, high organization. We're an example of that, in my opinion. We're opinion, we're not. You know, a lot of times people come out of the training they're like you know what? I knew most of this stuff already. I never thought about it in this particular way, but now that I've combined in this way, I'm 10 times more effective or my confidence level is so much higher now. So to me it's. I appreciate the fact that you guys have some humility. You're not pretending to be or have created something that didn't somewhere peace exists but you're saying, hey, here's in this approach it works, and the more I started digging into it, or sense of purpose for helping public servants, those combined and say this can really help people and it's very performance-based, which is my personal point of view, professionally. So these worlds kind of collided and I just said I have a real calling in a sense or desire to support what these guys are doing. So that's why I'm here. I think that's a great answer.
Speaker 2:Brian, I'm glad we're recording this, so that's why I'm here. I think that's a great answer, brian. I'm glad we're recording this. And I want to add Dan, I've never been accused of humility, so actually hearing that word in my name in the same sentence, what a bombastic asshole I am. But no, that's wonderful and it's noble. And you know what, at the end of the day, folks, you've got to understand that Brian and I and Dan don't sit around a table and pat each other on the back and go Harumph, that was wonderful, harumph. We're constantly adapting and making sure that what we're bringing is the best, most efficient cognitive model for your brain, for your performance, and that's not easy to do. People don't like being introspective, dan, people don't like being told that their baby is ugly right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had. What a 15-minute heated conversation on one photo this morning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we recorded this, followed by one where one word threw us into a tizzy, but you know what Isn't that wonderful? Remember the old murder board days in the military. It's no different. It's no different. We're passionate because we only have one chance to get it right. We only may see you one time, and some of this information is going to be relevant to you. Yeah, it's just too important.
Speaker 1:And I think that's why, I can't say it's right, the stakes are too high. Yeah, that's right. I can't.
Speaker 3:I can't. You know, this is only the second job. When I was younger, I worked as a job placement person for people with special needs, with adults with disabilities, and I thought here's a population that really can do good work, get a tremendous sense of satisfaction and pride and well-being from working. And I'll tell you, we had probably like 15 people on the rolls and I went into every grocery store. I was like you're getting one of ours, you're getting one of ours, you're getting one of ours Because, from my perspective, it's like they're too valuable, like that's. You can afford it and this is something that needs to happen. It's purpose-driven and you will be better for it it to happen.
Speaker 2:It's purpose-driven and you will be better for it. It's going to pay you back exponentially.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm just, I'm just, yeah, it's me again, because you may not realize it, but your staff is going to benefit. You're going to save lives. You are going to reduce friction in your community. You are going to engender trust if or when you start getting exposed to this training. So I'll say it on high and on low. I like, oh, tell me the objection and I'll, I'll give you a reason why you know I'll, I'll overcome it because it's, it's too important for you not to be exposed to it. Great, point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I I appreciate that, dan, and I appreciate you kind of sharing the story and talking a little bit more about you, and I know we'll have you on again for some future in-depth discussions. And then of course, on Patreon as well for those folks who are subscribed. I do have to promote that too while we're on here and remember everyone that you can go on there and find out more. But any last thoughts from Greg I'll go to you and then Dan give you kind of the last thoughts.
Speaker 2:Now we take a long, long time to get somebody from nowhere to on the advisory board, and then we take years to take somebody from the advisory board to finally put them on the rolls. And we have probably such incredible deep thinkers, dr Joan Johnson, for example. We think of a person that's on the board that'll never be on day-to-day because she's in high demand Clark Dever. You know Sim Trombitis. Why are those people there? Because they're thinkers. And then, tapping into Dan's ability to apply that to what we do on the day-to-day when we're out in the public, brian has just been so essential. I knew it was going to be great, but, brian, this was really you saying God, you got to take a look at what we could become, and that's what it is. It's the transformation. We have broken the surly bonds wait a minute, that's flight and are moving up and out at a tremendous rate, largely because of thinkers like Dan. And so, dan, welcome aboard.
Speaker 3:I appreciate that a lot, greg, and, if you notice, I was on the advisory board but, unlike Joan or Clark, I'm in low demand. That's exactly we can afford you.
Speaker 2:We can't afford those guys, brian also.
Speaker 3:A real bargain. I do have one final thing to say, one quick legacy.
Speaker 2:Legacy Seafood. Legacy Seafood Milledgeville, georgia.
Speaker 3:I'm in love with their food and legends legends legacy is good also starts with an l go to millageville. How many?
Speaker 1:gosh damn fish places are there. Yeah, beautiful, that place is, amazing. Their food is amazing and the food.
Speaker 2:The value come on dan after.
Speaker 3:Well, I appreciate the accolades, Greg, you know how I feel about you guys and the work. What I am doing also is I would love for anybody that's listening that wants to reach out and give feedback or say, hey, you know what, the course is great, this is what I found particularly impactful. And or, hey, you know what? You guys are missing an opportunity here by not expanding this more. Guys are missing an opportunity here by not expanding this more. Uh, that we are, we are in listening mode and I have the designated person to to gather that information, yeah, and then kind of share it with the team. So I would it's really requests that listeners send me an email, send me something. We can get in touch just informally say if there were two or these three things you guys could start focusing on or re-emphasizing this. This would do it because, in the end, I'm an advocate for you as the practitioners.
Speaker 2:So that's, that's my final word, right I appreciate that I'm on cipro so I'm impacted right now couldn't hold that one in I can't close, I can't get that one out, so oh man all right well, I think, on that note, we'll go ahead and wrap up here, appreciate it.
Speaker 1:I can't get that one out, oh man, all right. Well, I think, on that note, we'll go ahead and wrap up here. Appreciate it, dan, for coming on and talking to us.
Speaker 2:We'll have you on again.
Speaker 1:But thanks everyone for tuning in and don't forget that training changes behavior.
