The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – ClearPath EPM CEO Mike Johnson, Discusses Safety, Security, and Emergency Preparedness

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

ClearPath EPM CEO Mike Johnson, Discusses Safety, Security, and Emergency Preparedness Clearpathepm.com Show Notes About The Guest(s): Mike Johnson is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of ClearPath EPM. With a background in diplomatic security and law enforcement, Mike has extensive experience in safety, security, emergency preparedness, and operational resiliency programs. He has helped provide training and consulting services to schools, corporations, and other institutions around the world. Summary: Mike Johnson, CEO and Founder of ClearPath EPM, joins Chris Voss on The Chris Voss Show to discuss the importance of being prepared for disruptive events. Mike emphasizes the need for situational awareness and communication in order to remain safe and secure. He introduces ClearPath EPM's Totality platform, which helps organizations assess threats and vulnerabilities and develop emergency preparedness plans. Mike also highlights the value of online training courses and the human connection in building a culture of preparedness. Key Takeaways: ClearPath EPM helps organizations prepare for disruptive events through training, consulting, and technology. Situational awareness and communication are crucial for personal safety and security. ClearPath EPM's Totality platform provides tools for assessing threats, vulnerabilities, and assets, and developing emergency preparedness plans. Online training courses are an effective way to educate individuals and organizations on safety and security measures. Building a culture of preparedness requires ongoing training, planning, and preparedness. Quotes: "The more we can train people, the better the response is gonna be." - Mike Johnson "Response denotes prior planning and preparedness." - Mike Johnson "Fear stands for future events aren't real." - Mike Johnson

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

The Chris Voss Show. The Voss. There you go. We always do pretty down on the lady. As always, she nails it to the wall and tells us when the show is fully launched. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. We certainly appreciate you guys being here. As always, we just have the most amazing guests, the amazing minds on the show,

people who come share their wonderful stories of life, things they learned over their journey, and impart it to you and everything that goes in it. And, of course, none of those intelligent people are me. I'm just some idiot with a mic. But for 16 years, we've been the CEOs, the billionaires, the government officials, the ambassadors, the Pulitzer Prize winners, all of the smartest people on the planet appear on The Chris Voss Show, except for me.

And share with you what you need to know to make your life better and to learn stuff. Because we all need to learn stuff, A, and get better stories. Today we have Mike Johnson on the show with us today. He's going to be talking to us about what he does with his company, ClearPath EPM. He is a chief executive officer and founder of ClearPath EPM. And after a lengthy diplomatic security and law enforcement career within the U.S. government government Mike Johnson entered the private sector in 2010 as an executive with a global risk consulting company in 2014 he found a clear path EPM and has since then he's helped provide safety security emergency preparedness programs and campus resiliency training to hundreds of schools corporations and other

institutions in the US and around the world. He deeply appreciates and understands diverse cultures gained from extensive international travel and permanent overseas operational assignments within complex and often high-stress environments. He must have been in some of my marriages, too. He is a certified protection professional as awarded by ASIS International Certified and has extensive experience in the delivery and management of safety, security, emergency preparedness, and operational resiliency programs. He's a well

respected expert in the development of emergency preparedness and procedures, situational awareness of activities, vulnerability, and and risk assessments and high threat security operations which is why i refer to him and have him do analysis whenever i date johnson is a florida-based business leader he serves on the board of directors of winterfest and the board of trustees of the center for spiritual living in fort lauderdale he's also on the advisory board of national association of school and Campus Police Chiefs. And as we were joking before the show, he is not, sorry to disappoint, the House Minority Leader, or House Majority Leader. Speaker of the House.

Speaker of the House. Yeah, there you go. I got that right. Took me a while. I'm not sure I agree with that. Two million people just left. Yeah, we just lost everybody in Louisiana. But that would have been just five. so welcome the show Mike there you go thank you very much appreciate being on and where's

the drum roll after that fantastic opening there I know people people keep telling me they want me to follow around an MC introduce them everywhere I think there's a there's a monetization thing that i'm missing here you know i just have a trumpet here ye hear ye entering the room there you go exactly mike give us the i think do we get the dot com for clear path yet from you yes i was busy writing that joke in my head yeah exactly give us a 30 000 overview in your words of what ClearPath EPM does? ClearPath EPM.com, Chris. So what we do is we help organizations, schools, churches, institutions, live events to prepare for disruptive events so that they can remain safe, secure, and live in a nice, clean world,

healthy world. So that's kind of what we do. And we do it through a combination of a lot of different things, consulting, technology. But for us, it's really about what we call the human connection and making sure that you know from all the training you went in your previous careers. And what we find is, you know, organizations just aren't prepared to deal with the things that inevitably they'll have to deal with. And so you handle that through training, training, training, and did I say training? You know, much like you and I did in our careers in the government, it's like thousands and thousands of hours of training. And so that way we try to get the mindset for people to understand to not be fearful of what might come.

Because you know what fear stands for, right? You're a smart guy. You know this. Yeah. You're going to fight or gonna fight or flight right no fear is future events aren't real oh so yeah people people come up with this concept of oh there's gonna be an active shooter the reality is that's a very low probability but highly catastrophic possibility so you still have to have some basic plans for it but yeah so once people become fearful, they're like, oh, my God, this is going to happen. Well, no, actually, just sit back, think about what you got, deal with your vulnerabilities, train. And then when that happens, you'll be ready to respond.

There you go. This is why the people in the military train so much and like athletes and other things. Absolutely. So you're ready for, you know, not only the activity you need to do, but any contingency. And I love the operational awareness thinking. You've got an app, it looks like, and several courses on your website. Tell us about some of that.

Yeah. So we've started developing these online courses. It started, the first one during COVID, you know, because the consulting business was kind of, you know, it happened with consulting businesses. So we were contracted by the Department of State Office of Overseas Schools to develop this online course for U.S. State Department of Schools overseas called Prepare My School.

And that became a 13-module asynchronous training course. And the plan is to eventually do the same thing for churches, businesses, and live events and it's a it's a way you know now people can sit and look at the training without having to come to our live training and essentially get the same thing it's a very interactive course lots of activities and you know the idea is the the more we can train people let's focus on schools the more we can train teachers janitors you know facilities people when something happens the better the response is going to be and that's kind of the philosophy behind it there you go and people that are prepared they're educated that you know they

don't live in fear but they're you know and i think one of the things about fear is when an event happens you do go into fight or flight mode you go into, you can be destabilized by it, you can be locked down by it, and your responses are going to be probably not the best they could possibly be in that case. And so by being prepared, knowledge is power to the extent it's used. And you can therefore, you know, have a blueprint to work from. You think about, you know, I remember, I mean, I was 28 years in law enforcement. And so you go in, I was military before that. But, you know, what's the one thing they train us for in military and law enforcement?

Is to, when you hear gunshots, instead of running from it, which is the natural, you know, human instinct, is to run towards it without even thinking. So that's kind of the idea of, I think, training. I always say, and you'll appreciate this, that I don't want my clients reacting to an event. I want them responding. If you use the sports analogy, you think about if you're playing soccer or football, whatever, if you're on your heels, you're going to fall on your butt, right? But if you're ready, that you're on your toes, you're kind of leaning forward, and the same

thing with shooting or anything else. So that's what I always say is, you know, response denotes prior planning and preparedness. Don't want you reacting. That's a, you know, kind of gut instinct. It may work, it may not work. So the training, planning, preparing is a, you know, kind of gut instinct may work. It may not work. So the training, planning, preparing is a much better way to do it. There you go. Yeah. Give us a little bit about your life path, your life and how you, how you got into this business and some of your experiences maybe with the U S government and

stuff. Yeah, sure. So I started out, I was University of Mississippi and got a degree in criminal justice in ROTC, a little bit of standing army doing counterintelligence. Went to work for the Naval Investigative Service, which is the precursor to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, civilian special agent back in 1983. And I started out and I was essentially working counterintelligence, counterespionage cases. I did some really large Navy spy cases back in the 80s. And then I left there, went to diplomatic security, where I spent 18 years in diplomatic security, served overseas and tours in Lebanon, Venezuela, Dominican Republic,

TDYs in Colombia, high threat security details, things like that. And then my last job was I was special agent in charge of the Miami field office for diplomatic security, which is the sort of the highest field, if you will, the field general, the field colonel for law enforcement and a federal agency. And then actually left and went to the Department department of commerce did a lateral as a special agent in charge of export enforcement for the southeastern united states where i spent my last six years and mostly worked working on counterproliferation issues with iran for example and won some won some national level awards from the attorney general and department of commerce

and things doing that kind of stuff and then went into the private sector and kind of went back to kind of working the security stuff those types of things there you go and so then you open your own firm and and off you go doing private work and everything else so as people you know analyze their threats the world has become a more dangerous place you know we've seen recently jewish facilities getting attacked there was one where i think someone was shooting recently somewhere I think it was in the upper state New York someone was shooting a shotgun outside of the Jewish the church or synagogue you know it's it's become more dangerous and more weird and and you know every day the news is filled with insights that can

happen you know whether it's your local or whether it's the world. So how does one, how does one take this in and go, how can I be better prepared? Like if I'm, if I'm the average person, you know, you talked about being ready for disasters as well. If I'm the average person, what should I have in my arsenal or what should I have in my inventory physically or mentally to just be prepared or feel like I have I can respond as you put it yeah I think ultimately comes down to that you know I put I put tremendous you know emphasis on situational awareness and communication and so you think about situational awareness in your personal life or you know if you're traveling or something you know what, what is situational awareness? Now these days, you know, everybody's glued to their phone.

And you know, if you're walking through a mall or in a taxi or in an Uber and you're glued to your phone, you don't have situations. You have situational awareness of I'm watching the Chris Voss show on my, on my iPhone and not paying attention to the guys walking up to the, to the Uber with a gun, you know, you know, I think it's, you know, back in, in, you know, you, I gun. I think we're close to the same age. I don't want to out you like that, but back in the day, we didn't have cell phones. We can admit to that. It was a great time. What happens is they're great. There's a lot of good things come with technology today, but at the same time,

the technology is distracting us. And oh, by the way, it's also telling us all of the stuff that's happening around the world. And it may or may not be pertinent to what's in our lives. So I think it comes down to, I don't want people to live in fear, but it's, you walk into a restaurant, Chris, and it's crowded. What's probably one of the first things you're going to instinctively do from all those years of training? You're going to probably see where the exits are, right? But a lot of people don't. I mean, you think back to, remember in Paris, it was like probably eight years ago when they had, everybody was shot in the cafes in Paris, and they literally had the videos of people just sitting there stunned as the terrorists come up. It's like there's no situational awareness whatsoever.

They're just kind of freezed there in headlights. It's just really in your personal life or if you're driving or in your home life, it's just kind of being aware that, okay, one, there are people out there that may want to do bad shit. And, you know, if you're in a certain neighborhood, I was just in, I was just in Ecuador and, you know, there are parts of Quito where you just don't go, you know, other parts, you've got to be smart. And, you know, there's a lot of things going on, but it's, it's kind of know, know where you are, you know what the potential is in terms of potential disruptive events, and be aware and have a plan. I tell people all the time, it's like you go to the mall Christmas time

and you leave all your bags in the backseat of the car, more than likely someone's going to break the window of your car and steal your bags. Welcome to San Francisco. Put the bags in the trunk. So it's just, you know, I just think that people, you know, we're so wrapped up in technology and what's going on in our lives, we don't stop to think about we don't have to be a victim. You know, I talk, you know, soft target, hard target.

You know, soft target being the one who's in the iPhone. The hard target is the one who's looking around, spotting somebody, I got you, buddy. So you look at a harder target. And so most of these are targets of opportunity. They're going to go to the lesser of the less prepared. You bring up a good point. They know how to look for a mark, right?

Absolutely. And so they're looking for the person who's probably weaker and out of touch and, and, and maybe, you know, not, not someone who's, you know, well, just someone who's weaker, but the person who's aware looking, you know, I've given, I've been in situations where I've given someone the stink eye to let them know that I see you and I'm not the sort of guy you want to fuck with. Yeah. And they, and they know, and they'll recoil. Cause I, I have a, I have a good resting bitch face. Evidently. Yeah. I have that working for me.

Well, you know, but even that, I mean, stink eye or, you know, you think about if you're, if you're walking down the street and there's a,

you know, there's a, we can't say homeless anymore. I'm not sure what the right word is. Just say someone who doesn't have a home is, is on the street. And, and you know,

what did most people do they ignore them right and so what i do is i i say hi because one they know that i see them there yeah good point and so i'm not so it's a nice thing to say but it's also less likely they're going to come after me he's like well this guy's aware that i'm here so it it's just, you know, it just, you turn it off. So you can do the stink guy or you can just do, hi. Yeah. The Kelly from LinkedIn brings up a good point. Being aware of your surroundings is key. You know, especially if you're a man, you know,

as men we're the provider protector class, at least, you know, us older generations are. I'm still wondering about the newer generations. But I mean, that's our mandate as men. And, you know, usually when you're, you know, I come from that old school thing where if you're walking down the sidewalk with a woman, you move her to the inside of the sidewalk.

You know, you have an operational awareness of who's coming up to you, who's walking up behind you, who's coming forward and might be moving up and switching gears and moving up behind you. You know, just knowing and reading the room and seeing who's there. And just, I mean, basic security. But you know, just knowing and reading the room and seeing who's there and just, I mean, basic security.

But, you know, you bring up a good point. A lot of people are just lost in their phones. They're just, you know, they're just in their own private Idaho. And, you know, I've seen the guys, I think it's in other countries, where they have the phone snatchers, where if you're sitting in your car in traffic, they get your phone like this. They have guys that will come on bicycles and just grab it and, you know, at your hands and go, they'll hunt you. Remember, it used to be, you know,

probably like in New York and places, it would be the gold chain. You'd have your window down, they'd come by and snatch the gold chain off your neck, you know, with the window down. And now, you know, because I just got a new, you know, iPhone, that's $1,000. Yeah.

And even my old iPhone I traded in, they gave me $900 refund, rebate. So these phones work a lot of money. Why just grab your phone? You're going to get probably $300, $400 for it. Yeah, yeah. That's more valuable than what's in your wallet more than likely. Yeah. Except for you.

Except for me, of course. Yeah. But I don't keep well i i do carry a lot of cash from time to time when i'm doing events or something i think i just out of myself you did on international audience you just out of yourself or carried a lot of cash you still have to take it from me so there's yeah but you also you also said earlier the stink guy so it's like yeah you know yeah i i i somehow have i've had the ability i'm the stink guy, so it's like, eh, you know. Yeah, I somehow have, I've had the ability, I'm a big guy too, so I'm 6'2", and I'm kind of fat too, if you haven't noticed.

I'm not surprising anybody. Dude, I'm not, there's no judgment coming from me. And so I can come across as surly, and I can dominate with my height. It's kind of an interesting thing. And also kind of, I have this ability to come across, especially in private life, like you do not want to fuck with me. I'm nice as hell,

but I will rip your arm off and shove it down your throat. And I'm actually looking for that opportunity most times because I'm just, I don't know. I like being nice to people, but I have this rule, be nice to the nice people, be viciously fucking mean to the mean people. So I've just been too nice all day long, so if you want to screw with me,

I don't know. Let's see who wins. Well, the interesting thing is that you don't walk around in fear. No. But it's not, you know that it could possibly happen but you're prepared because you've had years of training you know what to do you're a little a little heavier and a little you know maybe a little slower than you were 20 years ago on the job but that's okay we all are i mean it's like yeah i still have my cat-like reflexes by the way but just just saying

that's for me there you go well you're probably in better shape than i was no you know me i'm just gonna i don't know breathe on them and fart in their face and i don't know having having the weight helps a little bit you know people can see you're a big guy and if they're a little guy they're just whatever with with the safety platform that you have what are some ways i notice there's courses there and different things imagine they're targeted from anywhere to the individual to the corporate tell us about how those work and how those can empower people so the the platform is called totality and I developed this I didn't do the technology of course but I was I was the subject matter expert on if you will it really came out of all those years of of you know because my whole

mindset has been preparedness and planning so i developed this technology that really addresses this human connection which is training and data and you think about you know you think about you know when you're on the job and you know you would do a drill or training you know it can be firearms calls or you know tactics or whatever you're always collecting data on how did you do? Because the next time you want to do better. And what happens is, like this address schools. Here in Florida, the legislature, for me, politicians shouldn't be dictating how you do safety. But anyway, the politicians have said you will do a drill once a month in public schools in Florida.

So what happens is they're just sort of going through the motions. Okay, we're going to do a drill once a month in public schools in Florida. So what happens is they're just sort of going through the motions. Okay, we're going to do a lockdown. They're not getting better. They're not collecting data. They're not actually thinking about why are you doing that? You're doing that so in the event some idiot comes to your campus, you actually know what to do as opposed to, well, the government said I had to do it. what we did is we have this platform so you can actually collect the data and be guided on what the proper recommended practices are to do a lockdown or do a lockout or clear the halls and the various you know evacuation things like that and so the whole idea was to to to give information that is is based on analysis of events and, you know, best practices, you know, recommended practices, things like that. And so that's the whole idea behind the platform is to allow people to like, oh, okay, now I'm actually collecting data.

And if you look at the last three years of all the evacuation drills we've done at my elementary school oh wow we've gotten really good and but we're still having issues so people just again and i always say that the reason you do a drill is not to do it for the sake of doing it you do it to get better when we went through firearms training it wasn't just to you know it was to actually maintain your proficiency and not get worse maybe get better but so that was sort of the genesis of building this platform is so that organizations, schools, churches, houses of worship, you know, understand the concept, okay, I've got some structure now, I know what I need to do in terms of, you know, planning preparedness, there's there's a self assessment for risks on there for threats and

hazards. And so you kind of take them through the, what I call, I have a seven-step process, which probably I should mention that anyway. And so basically it starts with assessment is the seven phases of emergency planning managed, which is the EPM. And, you know, you're assessing for threats and hazards, you're assessing for assets, and you're assessing for vulnerabilities. And, you know, you think about in terms of, you know, if you were to take a Venn diagram of threats and hazards, assets,

and vulnerabilities, and in the middle is risk. The only way you can lower risk is to deal with vulnerabilities. Threats and hazards are consistent. Assets are consistent. So if I'm going to lower risk in that Venn diagram, I have to address vulnerability. So you have to know what your weaknesses are, and then you have to strengthen those weaknesses. And then part of that is you can't strengthen them. Right. And so part of that is the whole training, you know, understanding, wow, what potential threats could my house of worship face? And then how would we counter that and

the whole thing goes back to situational awareness you know those you know all the standard stuff so that's why we built the platform there you I mean even as as early as with our companies in 1988 1999 there was starting to be the shootings at the office and stuff and so we had to start thinking about these sort of things. You know, a lot has changed since then, 9-11 and everything else and all sorts of wars. What are some safety measures that we're in the holidays right now,

for those of you watching on YouTube 10 years from now, what are some of the safety measures that we need to be concerned about maybe during the holidays at this time? Well, you know, just don't walk around with a whole lot of cash, Chris. Damn it. Damn it. Kelly already said, let me see if I can pull this up here. She said, way to tell us when to roll you, Chris.

Next thing you know, you put your itinerary out on LinkedIn or something. I only do that when I go to Vegas. Let's put it that way. If you want to enroll me in Vegas, good luck. There's a million cameras and security guards. Have fun with that. The same things apply. You just know that at the holiday time, there are going to be people who are looking for opportunities.

They're going to look for the person who's completely unaware. They've got their head in their phone. You're by yourself. Right. And so they're going to look for the person who's completely unaware. They got their head in their phone. You know, they're there. You know, you're by yourself, man or woman. You're walking into a dark part of the mall. You're not paying attention. You're not checking your backseat of your car. You know, it's all the standard stuff. And, you know, there is a, you know, human nature is there is a certain there's a sixth sense that will probably hair raise up on the back of your neck. Remember that when when something's happening pay attention to that right but if you're aware you're probably going to see that before it even you know even gets to that point but it's really

just put your phone in your purse keep your purse or your wallet if you if you know you might carry a man bag it's not it's not a bad thing just you know um do you carry a man bag no no well they call them they call them a murse right a murse is a murse no if i ever do that i'm having myself checked but i'm not judging anyone else who does that's just personally okay you know if you want to carry a murse that's fine but just keep it zipped up. Yeah. I mean, the biggest challenge with a Mercer purse is it can be ripped from you. Right. Yeah. Technically.

Yeah. So I've had, well, it's a classic, you know, you know, it's, it's like, you got a purse, Merce, you know, you have the strap over your shoulder versus hanging on, you know, send it, you know, I carry a backpack when I travel and if I'm in some sketchy, I'm gonna put it both, both arms as opposed to one where they can just rip it off. One of the things we do on our review channel that we did for years, and I've had friends that have had very expensive, that are camera photographers that have a lot of gear on them that are expensive. And they've been robbed.

They've been robbed on the train in Germany, on the train. Yeah. train yeah and and so they make these bags and i think they make them for backpacks but they make camera bags where one of the tricks is is if you're walking with your camera bag they come up behind you with a razor and slice the slice the cord and grab and run and so they have ones that now that won't slice this stuff i imagine they have the same for backpacks now yeah yeah you know ultimately you know it's hard to figure out, you know, what every situation is, but you know, that's, it's in the news. If you're going, if you're traveling to New York city and you're going to be in Times Square, Google it and you'll probably see, you know,

tons of stories about the whatnot to do in Times Square. Yeah. I go to New York just to get mugged. I think it's a welcoming committee actually. Yeah. don't know or at least it used to be that's kind of an old joke actually what threats do you see coming in 2024 now that we're turning the the cusp of this year i mean we've got a couple wars going on we've seen some activists from those wars that have used violence you know who knows what will what will come of it um uh what do you see coming in the future in the next year that maybe people need to be tuned in to? I think the landscape from a threat, sort of global threat perspective, is pretty touchy right now. You mentioned Israel-Hamas. That's not going to be resolved anytime soon.

You know, we're on the cycle now where they're dragging us through this. And of course, I was in Bogota right when the Israelis went into Gaza. And in Bogota, they're attacking people on the street in Bogota. And Jewish or not, I have blonde hair, not likely to get. So I see that, unfortunately, expanding out expanding out that whole, you know, Palestinian, Jewish, you know, Muslim situation. And then, you know, we've got Ukraine, Russia. That's not going away. You know, you still have to think about what's happening with Iran, with the threats that could get very nasty. You know, there's sort of threats directed at the, you know, seat of government right now, but that could change in a heartbeat.

And then you've got all the, you know, the various Hezbollah and all the functionaries of Iran and, and, and Hamas. And, you know, I, you know, we could very well see a situation, you know, like you think back to the eighties, remember we were dealing with Bader Meinhof and, you know, the red brigades and all this stuff that, you know, very well could see a situation where terrorism starts spiking again. You know, we, we. We've seen a lot of white nationalist stuff too.

I mean, the thing that I... I'm not afraid of someone who looks like an immigrant or from the Middle East. I'm afraid of people who look like me. Angry, white nationalist, failure men who are bitter and angry and own guns. And that's who I'm afraid... That's who I'm actually looking for when I go into crowds.

I'm not looking for the immigrant or the Middle Eastern looking guy. I'm looking for guys who look like me. And to me, they're the most dangerous. I don't know. I could be wrong. Yeah, I think definitely, you know, on a domestic front, you know, the whole idea of domestic terrorism is, is out there. You know, it's, it's, it's honestly, it's, it's so easy to get the tools of their trade, you know, be it,

be it firearms or explosives or whatever, you know, you think about back to Oklahoma city was the last probably big domestic terror incident, you know, and it was like 90, 94, you know, so definitely I agree with you. It's like, that's something that, and honestly, I sometimes wonder if our national law enforcement intelligence assets can keep up with it. Yeah. I mean, you think about what Hamas was able to do in Gaza with, or attack the Israelis, which would arguably have the best intelligence apparatus in the world. And they got surprised. So what does that say about everybody else?

Even the FBI has admitted that it's almost impossible for them to stop an event when it's about to happen. And I think I saw FBI Director Christopher Wray speak recently that more people need to speak up and talk. Anytime I see one of these shootings going on, like school shootings, there's a lot of fricking people though. This dude is off the rails and they don't say anything. They don't do anything. There are,

there are a few examples of where people are like, well, we tried to have him committed and you know, somehow he skipped a bat past the background check. Let me ask you about this. Does, does people really need to keep to, to get guns to be be to feel operationally

safe in their public environment it's it's a very complex issue i always felt like i've never needed a gun and i've been in situations with people that have them in in a confrontational situation where i caught them breaking in my car i think there's a few other examples but you know me being able to keep my cool not not created a situation and know how to defuse it was really important but i don't know that if i would have had a gun that it would end the same way and you know and i've had friends that you know they get into situations but they get into situations like why are you at the harley davidson dive bar where the drugs are being dealt? Yeah.

Your guns and their guns. And you know, it's going to be problems. Like I, my friend used to tell me this, here's what you do. You keep one in the soccer. And I'm like,

I know. I just don't go to the fucking bar. Yeah. Why are you going to, man? I just don't, you know, I I'll,

I'll, I'll confess, you know, I've been, I've been off the job. I retired 13 years ago and, you know, I carried a gun for 28 years every day of my life for 28 years, you know.

I retired. I haven't touched it. And I won't because, you know, it's a skill-based thing. And I always tell people, you know, if you want to go get a concealed weapons permit or if you're in one of the, what's it called, the constitutional carry states. There's 26 or 27 on them now. That's fine. But here's the thing. Be prepared to take someone's life. Understand the consequences of it. Be trained. And oh, by the way, more than likely, they're going to take the gun away from you. Because you don't have the right, you don't have the weapons retention skill that you learn in law enforcement to actually keep somebody from getting your gun.

So if you're like you, if I'm on my Harley, I'm at the Harley bar, I don't want a gun because I'm having a cocktail or something. It's like my faculties aren't there. It's going to be taken away from me. So if you're committed to that, train, train, train, train, and understand the repercussions. If you pull that gun, you better be prepared to take their life. Yeah. And people have this fantasy that's very movie-like. They're like, oh, I'll kill somebody.

And while that seems nice, I mean, if I ever killed somebody intentionally or by accident, it would haunt me for the rest of my life, but it might be built a little different. Knowing that I robbed someone in their life by accident or by intention. Well, it depends on which enemy it is. I'm just kidding. But no, I'm just being funny, folks. But, you know, one of the other problems you have that people, I never hear people talk about this when they're arguing about guns and safety and blah, blah is they never really talk about the civil lawsuits so yeah you may take someone's life or you may maim them but i mean you know i mean these days the guy who robs your house

you know if he twists his ankle on your floor where he's breaking through your window he's going to sue you for it yeah and the wrongful death lawsuits that you're going to spend and attorney's fees and everything else. You know, even some of these high-profile cases where you've seen guys get off being innocent for, you know, shooting some people in an event or something. Even if you're the good guy with a gun, you know, and you save the day or something,

you're going to get freaking sued, wrongful death suit. And you're going to spend millions probably in litigation and assets and you know between that and the other thing so yeah i think i think your idea of being situationally aware not going to certain areas not getting into certain things you know like my friend he would always be like what are you gonna do chris if you ever get jumped into dark alley i don't go into dark alleys yeah exactly i don't know why you're I don't go to your Harley Davidson bars they're good people but you know hey I know what happens at those parties you know everybody's got to sleep in a tree if you pass out you

know I know it goes on to those parties but just don't put yourself in those situations I think you'd be wise what about home protection what are your some of your thoughts on protecting the home because Because one of the problems is too with guns at home is usually, what is it, like seven times out of 10 or something, someone in the house will end up finding the gun and using it. Right. I used to get this a lot, particularly overseas, you know, where, you know, like in Venezuela, people say, I'm going to get a gun. I'm going to get a home. I'd say, you know what, if you're committed to that and all the things you train, understand that you're going to take someone's life gonna get a hope i'd say you know what if you're committed to that and all the things you train understand the understand the that you're going to take someone's life get a shotgun

because you know there's nothing like that sound of that right if you're if you're carrying one or someone else is carrying one you're like uh oh right you can just have it on your phone, a sound. There you go. I like that idea. The unmistakable 870 being racked. There you go. That'll like being, you know, having dogs.

I think my dogs are more aware of what goes on in the yard than anything. Having that, you know, I remember one time I put a beware of dog sign and my friend friends are like your dogs aren't scary chris they're huskies like they're not gonna they're not like doverman pinchers or something i'm like doesn't matter people if you're breaking into houses you see the sign you just go hey i'm not going to try and figure out which type of dog that guy has i'm going to move to this place that doesn't have the sign in fact it's one of the best security signs you can have with your dogs. Absolutely. I have a lab. He's right here asleep on the couch. Labs will

lick you to death. If someone comes to the door, he'll bark. It's a deep bark. Most people go to the house next door, they don't have a dog. Get a dog, alarm systems, same thing.

Keep your doors locked. How many times do people leave the garage door open, leave the cars unlocked? You know, I live in downtown Fort Lauderdale in a nice neighborhood, but it's like we're just two blocks away from a bad neighborhood. Yeah. So they come over here and steal bikes, and it's like, well, don't leave your bike outside. Yeah. still bikes and you know it's like well don't leave your bike outside yeah we even have a camera in my garage so that i can see number one if the garage door is closed because every now and then i'll i'll muck that up somehow you know i'm driving off and i think i've done it and i'll be like i've done it yeah garage door or not and so then i can check in but it also it scans and pans

the garage because if somebody's going to break in the house, usually they're going to go for the garage first, like you said, looking for bikes, duels, you know, and so there's that. But it scans and marks those. And there's so many cheap security cameras now that actually do a pretty good job, I think. Yeah, but, you know, think about cameras. I get this a lot with my clients. It's like, oh, we want cameras. You know, cameras are great for forensics. They broke into your house.

They want to see who did it. We know who did it but you know you're not monitoring the camera unless it's a motion sensitive you know camera you're just it's a it's a forensic value and you know humans you know in schools a human can't sit and look at you know 47 monitors after eight minutes they can't see anything you know it's just like their cameras are great for forensics or if you if you get to close your garage door you can say oh let me check my camera the ring the ring doorbell though i think is great for as a deterrent because if somebody enters that for that front space yeah and it picks them up and you can respond like you know i've and i always respond like i'm home

yeah i'm just obsessed i can't come to the door right now. The worst thing you could be like, oh, I'm at the store. What do you need? Yeah. No, I love Ring. And obviously, that's why Amazon paid a billion dollars for them. I mean, it's great technology and low cost. Yeah.

And once you pick somebody up on that thing, they know. I mean, I've seen people try and steal them and rip them off once they know they've been made. It's like, dude, that's in the cloud by now. I don't know what you're thinking. Yeah, it's already on my phone. It's like, yeah. Yeah. Totally agree with you.

So you consult with all the different variations of people, companies out there. Should every company, you know, if I'm a small business guy out there, a medium-sized business, a large company, do I need to have you coming out, giving training, talking about possible deterrence in business? Somebody, disgruntled employee can show up with a gun. Absolutely. I mean, you think about the preparedness side, and you may know this, OSHA, Occupational Safety and Health act requires businesses i think over over 10 people have to have some type of mercy preparedness plan they don't enforce it but you know the government any at any given time there can be a new politician so you know i'm going to start enforcing this you know basically all organizations should have some semblance of a active shooter active active assailant, mercy preparedness plan.

You know, and that's what a lot of what my program does. But yeah, businesses and, you know, houses of worship. I'm doing a training on the 20th of January here in South Florida for houses of worship on church safety. Because, you know, hey, if people can attack the Capitol, then they think nothing about attacking a house of worship, which to me is nuts, right?

Yeah, those have become a huge target. In fact, I think most churches now have a security team on site, a voluntary security team. Yeah, I run it for our spiritual center, and it's the same thing. We have a large LGBTQ community, and we have a community that is vulnerable. That's true. People ride around the Trumps, the flags, and they're taking targets. If you're a little bit on the left of center on your sort of liberal thinking, it goes back to what you were saying about the ultra right-wing threats.

There you go. And I think, too, having situational awareness makes you aware of people that are casing a joint, which is, I don't know if you want to explain what casing a joint means. It sounds like a movie term. It is a movie term. It is. Yeah, I mean, they're basically, you know, we used to call it preoperational surveillance, where, you know, that came from the terrorists, we used to call it pre-operational surveillance. Yeah.

Where, you know, that came from the terrorists, where that's how you would pop a lot of terrorists is they would literally have to, before the days of phones and cameras, they would literally have to sit outside your residence for six days to get your patterns down. And so that's really, but even to this day, you know, terrorists, in a terrorist case or they're going to attack a church, they're going to do drive-bys because most of these guys want to get away. And so if you want to get away, you're not willing to die at the scene, then you're going to figure out, you're going to look, you're going to watch, you're going to see what you're doing, which is why you've got to be there to have that situational awareness. And that guy's been sitting in the parking lot for the last two Sundays. I wonder what's up with him. Yeah. yeah yeah watch who's following you in a car you know i'm not like totally paranoid like i don't know some people on some tv show but i i do you know i watch sometimes if there's a car that appears to be following me or and turning with my turning like the other night i think i was coming home it was late at night and i thought it was interesting that this car was making all the same turns i was turned down my main street then

turned down the street where i'm about ready to turn to my home and i remember thinking this is kind of interesting and what was weird was they pulled off to the side of the road and stopped yeah like almost to watch where i would go in and my little spidey sense just kind of went i know about this it's kind of interesting, I don't know about this. It's kind of interesting. And maybe you should just do an additional drive around the block instead of stop where you're going. I don't know.

That may have been paranoid. Maybe, you know, but you never know. In today's world, you piss somebody off. Maybe, you know, I was thinking, God, did I move lanes and piss somebody off? And now that we've got some road rage issues and I don't see it coming. Well, you think about, you know, to your listeners.

So they would know that. I mean, you sort of had that instinct, but literally that's a, that's a perfect scenario. If you're thinking you're being followed, you just keep on driving. Do not go to your house.

Right. Drive, drive to a fire station, drive to a police station, drive to a, you know, a grocery store where there's a security, you know,

and go inside. But yeah, cause it very well may have been, they were, they were looking at you. They liked your car. You know, you a security, you know, and go inside. But, yeah, because it very well may have been they were looking at you. They liked your car. You know, you gave them the eye at the restaurant or something. Yeah, but, I mean, you know, who knows? But if you see that car again, you're going to recognize it. Yeah.

I give chicks the eye at the restaurants too. It gives them the same. It ends up doing the same thing. They run away screaming. Yeah. How does that work for you? It doesn't. I just have resting bitch face no matter what I do. I can't win. I don't know. It works for me.

I'm still single and have all my money. That works. That you carry around with you when you travel. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. There's a joke there about Vegas not being alone in money, but I'll leave it alone. Give us your final pitch.

How can people on board with you get to know you better, you know, all that stuff as we go out? Yeah. Go to our website, clearpathepm.com, and there's a lot of stuff on the website about upcoming training, the various training for schools, you know, all the services we do from security guard, you know, management. And, you know, we do a lot of different things and have a lot of talented consultants. Check us out on the website. And we have a LinkedIn page, ClearPath EPM on LinkedIn, our company page. And you can reach out to us at the info at clearpath.com. There you go. You've given us a lot of great tools and women are more security obsessed than we are because they really need to be.

And then you see their targets and all sorts of evil stuff. It's definitely good tips for them as well. Thank you very much for coming on the show, Mike. We really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Have an awesome day and a good holiday season. You too, man. Be careful this holiday season, you know.

And then don't leave the window open with your tree and all the presents for everyone to see from the road. Exactly. Hey, look at this great tree we have. Really big presents on the ground there. There you go. Thanks for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, FortressCrispFoss, LinkedIn.com,

FortressCrispFoss, CrispFoss1, the TikTokity, CrispFoss, Facebook.com, and all those great places around the internet. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. Chris Voss won the TikTokity. Chris Voss, Facebook.com, and all those great places around the internet. Thanks so much for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time.