The School of Greatness - 530 When Violence Is the Answer: Self-Defense Strategies with Tim Larkin

Episode Date: August 30, 2017

"Look where nobody else is looking." - Tim Larkin If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/530

This is episode number 530 with New York Times best-selling author and self-defense specialist, Tim Larkin. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro-athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur, and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

Winston Churchill said, danger, if met head on, can be nearly halved. Welcome everyone to this episode. Tim Larkin is in the house and he is Americaica's leading pro victim rights and personal safety advocate he was named the 2011 self-defense instructor of the year and simultaneously inducted into the black belt hall of fame he is a former military intelligence officer he was part of a beta group that redesigned how special operations personnel trained for close combat.

He has a 25-year career and has trained people in 52 countries on how to deal with imminent violence. He has trained military special ops, special law enforcement teams, celebrities, high-profile business leaders on how to use physics and physiology to injure any humans trying to attack them. He is a highly sought after speaker as well as the media's go to guy on self defense and victims rights. And his new book is out. It's called when violence is the answer. Now, most of you might think that violence is never the answer. And I like to believe that as well. But I also like to believe in having an insurance policy and to being prepared when someone does come out and attack at your life, when there is a scary situation and you feel nervous and fearful and not sure what to do.

And half the battle is really being mindful of the situations you're putting in. And Tim will go into more about that. And some of the main things that we'll cover are how to handle our most innate fear when someone bigger than us is dominating us. Also, how women respond to violence training versus men. Why the more you study the tool of violence, the more peaceful your life actually becomes. The social differences between normal people and predators and why you should look where no one else is looking in your business.

Very excited about this one. Tim, again, has a wealth of information and knowledge and has been a part of this world for many, many years, studying it from the biggest predators in the world, for many, many years, studying it from the biggest predators in the world, why they want to be attacking others and how to make sure that you set yourself up to not be in that situation. And if you enjoy this episode, please take a screenshot,

tag me on your Instagram story. I try to respond to everyone over there if I can. I'm always over on the Instagram, trying to respond to people. So take a screenshot, post it on Instagram story or your Instagram page, tag me at Lewis Howes there on Twitter, Facebook. Let me know what you think.

Let me know what's coming up for you. Let's have a conversation. This link is lewishowes.com slash 530 and you can check the full show notes out over there as well. All right, guys, without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only, Tim Larkin. Welcome back to one of the School of Greatness podcasts.

We have the legendary Tim Larkin in the house. Good to see you, man. Good to see you, man. Very excited. It's been a while. Last time we hung out was at your gun range in Vegas and I got to shoot some really cool guns with my girlfriend Jen. It's good to see you here, man.

I'm excited about... Love the place, Jen. And it's good to see you here, man. And I'm excited about both the place, man. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm excited about this topic because I think it's timely with a lot of uncertainty, especially in the US, but around the world with all these different bombings and attacks and just people feeling unsettled in general. You are one of the leading experts on violence and self-defense in the world. And you've got this book out called When Violence is the Answer, Learning How to Do What It Takes When Your Life is at Stake. Make sure you guys pick this up right now. Amazon and everywhere books are sold.

Now, we were just talking about this before we started. Most people, you were saying, don't feel like they need to protect themselves or they need to take training on self-defense. Is that what I heard? Most people, until they get an attack or something happens, they feel like they don't need it? Yeah, it's a misunderstanding. So most people think, and not even the idea of violence,

they think the idea of training for, say, self-defense or something like that, that it's really reserved for the physically elite. They see something like the UFC, and they see some of those amazing athletes, and they say, well, geez, I can never be that. So therefore, there's no reason for me to train. Or they go the opposite route, and they say, well, I'm just going to buy a gun. That's the extreme. Or pepper spray.

Or pepper spray. They're going to default to a tool. And the idea is what makes us so amazing, what makes us so dangerous at the same time is the human brain. And so it's the idea of engaging your brain first and training your brain and understanding the principles of violence. And you have to specifically say violence because when we say fighting, fighting can be a lot of different things. You know, you can fight with your friend. You can fight with your mom.

You can fight with, you know, it's a very vague term. When you say violence, everybody knows what you're talking about, you know. And that's the idea. That's really what we're worried about. We're worried about another human being, a bigger, faster, stronger human being dominating us. You know, it's probably our most innate fear. And yet we have got to the point in our society where this subject has become so taboo that the only people that have access to it really are the predators or, say, the first responders

in a very different manner. The civilian population, the ones that are most affected by violence, have basically been told, hey, don't worry about it. Don't, you know. You don't want to train. You don't want to do these things. Just obey the laws. Right. You'll be okay. Comply. We'll get here. Well, that's just not the case. We're seeing that more and more. And you see extreme examples like some of the attacks that we've seen lately where people are using vehicles or using knives or using very low-tech violence with intent, and people really don't have an answer to it. And so the idea is, my big goal is to say it's okay to study the subject of violence.

It's all right for us to look at it. It doesn't make us violent. It doesn't make us criminal. But it is a life skill everybody should be aware of. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to ask my, the ladies in here, have you guys ever done any self-defense classes? One time a girl's camp when you were 15. Have you? No to self-defense. Now, do you think this should be a requirement for everyone? You know, not just women in general, because I think those

are the individuals that probably experience more attacks or susceptible to more attacks in general, at least in our society. But do you feel like it should be a requirement for all women and for all human beings, whether it be in grade school or middle school or high school, at some point to go through a basic training self-defense class or when violence comes class? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and here's, people get skewered for this. You know, we had the former Miss America when she accepted, she's a Miss Nevada.

And when she got up there, she said, hey, I have a black belt in Taekwondo and I think every girl should, you know, learn how to defend herself. You know, just a very vanilla statement. Yeah. She got skewered. She was told that, no, you know just a very vanilla statement yeah she got scared she was told that no you know you're telling women that they should learn how to how to protect themselves rather than

tell men that they shouldn't be attacking women i understand that they're both i absolutely understand it's just like you know i don't think anybody should you know like this is your studio i don't think anybody should come in here and rob your studio and take all of your stuff yeah but that doesn't mean that you don't lock your doors. Exactly. You know? And so, there's some reality you have to put into this. And with women, I think the subject is just explained wrong to them for the most part.

They try, they're taught as a lesser citizen. You know, the men, they know how to take care of themselves. Hey, honey, we're going to teach you this way. Male or female, when we train women, I find women to be better students. They don't try to muscle things. They have a very clear understanding. They use the technique better probably. Very much so.

And the interesting thing about women versus men is, you know, you and I have had to navigate inter-male aggression. We've had to navigate locker room stuff where we communicate, guys communicate sometimes with violence. So we have that social violence that we have to say, is this social violence or is this the real thing? Women don't have that. When they experience violence, it's the real thing. Therefore, their ability to react once properly trained is pretty instantaneous. Darrell Bock Because they're not roughhousing a lot and experiencing just-

Mark Miller No. No, they know if a man puts their hands on it, and it is men. Men are the threat to women. Men are the overwhelming majority of incidents involving physical violence. And that is the biggest threat to women is a male using violence against a woman. Do we know the statistics yearly, at least in the U.S., of how many domestic violence or whatever violence there is? I had the latest statistics in my last book. I just don't want, I don't want to give those because it was a couple of years ago, but I did this book a while back. You know, the telling thing for me was I was with, you know, I'm used to front row with Tony Robbins. We were

at an event and Tony, you know, Tony being Tony, he goes, it's a couple's event. And he basically asked the crowd, he said, listen, I'm not saying you that anything was about to happen or you really felt that he goes, but I'm saying the last, what do you say in the last week have, it has an incident occurred where you felt there was a potentiality for violence. There was a potentiality for you to experience a violent situation in your

relationship or in life. Just, he just put it out like, yeah, probably less than five percent of the men raised their hands okay last week 95 of the women had their hands really just maybe walking down the street or just feeling yeah you know getting in an elevator unfamiliar male comes in there they're far more women are far more aware of violence than men for the most

part the potentiality for violence yeah and what's interesting is it's there. They also are the most difficult to get in to take training. Why is that? We've been told, they've been told the society, it's not, you know, first of all, it's not, you know, ladylike, you know, you have that aspect of it. We're getting kind of past that. And then a lot of the training is not really geared towards women. Um, if I, if I have a woman, we have to assume the threat's always going to be bigger, faster, stronger, male or female, you know, if we're facing something. Women, though, are constantly put in situations where they're supposed to try to compete on athleticism and strength in certain situations in combat sports. Yes. What we need to do with women is train them to understand how to injure the human body. Injury of the human body, which is a differentiation. It's putting an injury on the human body that

takes away the bigger, faster, stronger aspects of things. There are areas in the human body that are all accessible. We're all weak in the areas of our body. So the big thing, the big mind training, the mind switch that i get with women is i train them to stop looking at the differences in their attacker and start looking at the similarities and the idea is instead of saying oh my god this guy's so much bigger than me he goes oh he has a neck like me oh oh he has a knee like me oh he has she starts recognizing right away all the all the points that are going to you know she can go directly to and get a result if her life is on the line yeah all of that and so and it's that that's the biggest difference and when you're talking about you

know using violence to protect yourself is you have to be able to recognize the uh similarities in the human body and go after those and ignore all the differences you know and it takes a little bit of time to to get that across not no a long time, but you just wrap your head around it. Once you make that switch, it's amazing. You look, people laugh all the time. In fact, I was just doing an interview with a friend of mine a while back. And he goes, you know, I had to stop training last year. He goes, because I kept, you know, all I saw were targets on the human body when I was talking.

Really? And he's trained for years with us and everything. And he was half joking, but he wasn't. That's what I want to give everybody is the potentiality that, hey, I know exactly where to go and what to do, you know, should there be a physical altercation. But I don't have to live this crazy paranoid life. Sure. You know, I can actually, what's really interesting is the more you study the subject of violence, the more peaceful your life is. It's crazy.

You know, it's counterintuitive. But the idea is it's almost like anything else that you conquer. If you have a fear of swimming and you learn to swim, you no longer are nervous around water anymore or anything like this. Once you understand the tool of violence and how it applies to you and how you can use it and you know what you need to respond to and what you don't need to respond to, all of a sudden you look at the world differently and you look at threats differently. Yeah. And that's the greatest thing.

Yeah, to give people that kind of confidence to understand that, you know, is really huge. Yeah, I think it's more, it's really just setting yourself up to win in every situation. So when you're walking down the street and there's someone walking behind you, you know, just understanding what you should be thinking about or how you should be approaching it. Or if you're in an elevator and someone comes in who maybe has a weird vibe, like where to stand and how to position yourself and just how to be prepared if something goes wrong. Right. And I'm assuming that's a lot of what it is. Just like being aware, being mindful and being ready for anything. Not saying you have to have your guard up all the time, but just like, okay, well, I'm going to turn this way and wait

30 seconds till I'm out of the elevator. Then I know i'm good to go and i don't have to worry right now yeah is that a lot of it or yeah that's well the whole idea is for you to to sit there and just have an understanding of how the tool how the tool works you know i give extreme examples um but basically if you know if if there was an assault right now somebody ran in here and uh you know attacked me say it said attacked me and it was successful and grabbed a knife and you know stabbed me and killed me you know it's a horrible right yeah it would be a criminal act and and you know he probably should be prosecuted uh to full extent of law probably incarcerated the rest of his life

um or we could have that same scenario guy comes in and this time i'm successful i see that he's you know he's getting in a lethal and my life is in danger and i see that knife and i'm able to use that knife i'll stab him in the same area of the neck and i end up killing him you know horrific but probably should agree that hey tim was justified in doing that this guy was you know this guy was absolutely um criminal and trying to kill him and he was in fear for his life yeah what i try to get everybody to understand is we love the story on either side of that but the fact is this if it was the good guy or the bad guy the knife to the side of the neck worked each time it didn't care if it was a good guy or bad guy so therefore

violence is just a tool and learning how to use it effectively does good guy or a bad guy. So therefore, violence is just a tool, and learning how to use it effectively does not make you a criminal. How you use the tool will be determined whether or not it was justified or criminal. And everybody says, well, aren't you afraid putting information out like this that the predators will have it all? That's the first thought.

I understand where they're coming from, but the sad truth is, and the scary fact is, they don't need it. The people that really need it are, you know, the, the, the good people that are out there, you know, your folks that are listening right now, I would say the majority of them need this information. Yeah. I would say probably 90% of people haven't gone through a self-defense. I'm just assuming, but maybe I'm wrong. A lot of the fault of that is our industry. Our industry puts it out. Like, you know, uh like there's a lot of machoism in the industry. There's a lot of guru, follow the guru.

It's not really client-focused. We try to be very client-focused. Everybody's human machine is different. You're taller. She's smaller. We work with everybody's human machine because it's a very personal thing, and everybody's human machine can get a result. But if you sit there and the whole thing is about hey look like me or i'm going to put you in these

really difficult scenarios that basically are going to break your confidence it's going to make the instructor look good but it's going to make you all you're going to come away if if any of your training is such that the only thing you can come away and say oh my god my instructor was so amazing he was great you know. That's bad instruction. Sure, sure. It really is about, hey, what can he get you to do? And that's my goal. My goal is whenever I come in contact with anybody,

by the end of their time with me, what did they come here with and what did I have them leave with? And that's the most important thing. And that's a very hard thing because there's lots of things I would love to show people. Yeah. And it's fun. A lot of the fun stuff that i like to do is beyond most people's coordination

you know it would take me too long to get there but i can make them effective very quickly you don't have to be um you know an amazing athlete to be effective with the tool of violence yeah let's just say people listening are never going to take a self-defense class, but they're listening here and you've got a few minutes to share with them some basic training verbally, or if they're watching on the video, what would you say are the main things they should be focused on when they feel an attack hand to hand, no weapon,

but just a physical attack in it. You know, this is hard to, I guess put parameters, but just in a normal setting, you know, no, no,

normal violence setting. The one thing that I would, that I would absolutely tell everybody to do, and it's going to sound like a pat answer and it's not pay attention to the nonverbal cues, pay attention to your situation. And I'll tell you, I talked to everybody that had,

you know, as I told you 70 percent of people come to me come to me after the fact after after violence has already affected their lives um you know because they don't want to happen again they want to be ready for it yeah they want it's kind of like it's like everybody buys a burglar alarm after you've had the break-in right you know type thing i can't undo what's already been done but i can give them principles and methods to make sure that it minimizes the chance of it happening yet one of the things that i've learned is when i when i walk people back people normally will come to a point to where i felt uncomfortable here but socially would have been awkward for

me to do x y or z so i continued on and then by the time it got to here you know it was already we're talking about like you're saying hey hands-on physical if it gets hands-on physical and you have nothing in the toolbox, you know, I can tell you, Hey, do whatever it takes, but you don't know whatever it takes. You know, you haven't thought about that. So yes, you're going to, if, if somebody is putting their hands on you and you're facing grievous bodily harm and you need to be able to physically protect yourself. Um, most people though can avoid 99% of those incidents by following all these nonverbal cues that we get.

Our body communicates to us in much different ways. The feeling, the fear, sensory. Yeah, all these things. And be okay with being embarrassed. Be okay with looking ridiculous. Better to look ridiculous and be alive. Absolutely. I had a friend's wife who she she was a teacher, she was a PhD, and she was finishing up,

before she got her PhD, she was finishing up at grad school one night. She was parked on the third floor. Her friends were parked on the second floor. Her friends said, hey, we'll drive you up, drop your car. It wasn't too bad. It was probably 9.30 at night. It was in San Diego. And she was like, oh no, there's no reason. Even though there's a sketchy guy that was walking around in there. And she felt bad because she thought maybe she was judging this guy. So she lets her friends go to the car. She comes up.

Now, luckily, she's one of my instructor's wives. And she had been through not a lot of training. She'd only been through like one of our weekend programs. And it was like two years prior when she got to the third floor the door opens and there he is no way literally right there that's she just knew right away she had her briefcase in her hand and she just rammed her briefcase into his groin and then she was able to to hit him in the side of the neck now she's a little woman she was like 5'1 and this guy was much bigger but you know he reacted to the strike to the groin and then the neck was exposed and she was hit the neck and hit

it onto the side of the uh of the uh door the you know the elevator door that knocked him out at that point you know it was because he was not expecting this sure you know and she felt threatened right away this is what i'm talking about women you know she didn't hesitate she knew there was something or wait a minute he was just on the first floor he saw me say bye to my friends i come up and he's not just like there he's right there you know we're getting in there so she didn't hesitate which to her credit you know probably saved her from a physical assault now the question a lot of people say well gee would you know you know like maybe he wasn't gonna do anything what was he gonna do you know maybe it's a huge misunderstanding and her husband

says the same thing every time he goes, well, I'm really happy. It turned out that way. He said, because I still have my wife, my son still have their mom and it could have been that way. But what they do know is by the time security got up there,

that guy was gone. You know, he was, he was out of there. So, you know, most likely he wasn't, uh,

he wasn't planning anything, you know, good, but those are the type of stories that I tell because everybody goes, wow, that's amazing. And you're like, look, oh, she knew how to, and you're thinking, oh, okay, briefcase to the groin and then side of the neck.

You're thinking wrong because what she kicks herself about is she said, I knew, I knew, and I ignored it because it was socially awkward. I didn't want to put my friends out. I didn't want to do that. And she almost had a horrible thing happen to her, you know, and she was able to avoid it. And it was just because she did have something in the toolbox.

She was able to protect herself. But she shouldn't even have to go there. That's what we don't. Take the ride when she has a feeling. Say, yeah, drive me up. It's two minutes extra. That's the goal. That's the goal with every one of my clients.

Or someone walk with me up there, whatever. I had a client. I was talking talking i just was thinking about this guy the other day uh he was he was an oil texas oil guy it's probably about 15 years ago big dude and just you could tell former and texan football player he just liked to go to honky tonks and get in fights he's just one of those guys a brawler you know like not and not a jerk but he was looking for fights you know he just thought it was fun and he came to me on the second day of training and he said to me he goes hey uh i just want to thank you and like you know what are you talking about he said uh he goes i called my wife this morning and told her i said uh just after the first day of training he said i am so lucky all

these years that i didn't inadvertently injure somebody irreparably and get myself in real bad trouble and be in jail. He goes, and conversely, that didn't run into somebody that was a true predator that could have easily killed me on that. And he goes, I just want you to know you don't have to worry about me anymore. And his wife was crying on the phone. It was there, but it was a complete behavioral change because when you show people like people come to me all the time they'll say oh you know show me uh you know they'll say it half jokingly they'll say oh how do you kill a guy like this but i'm gonna show them three or four things you know real quick whoa no i mean what scares them is it's so easy yeah the the human body is very fragile i mean we have tons of articles of two guys get in an argument, one guy pushing the other guy, the other guy braining himself,

and he's dead. In the back of his neck. Yeah. So that idea of when you're talking about just pure violence, it's extremely easy to injure somebody. So they'll say something like that, and then they'll want to back off. And they'll say, no, no, I just want to hurt him just enough. I just want to do it.

To get away. And the problem is there's no guarantees when you cross that physical plane you know with adrenaline and power you don't know how it's going to act i mean i show videos all the time in training where i'll show the epic bar brawl where there's two guys just slugging you know and it's and it's horrific you know i mean they're really going at each other but at the very end they both walk away and you know it's one of those type of deals then i'll show this another scenario. It looks very similar at the start. One guy hits another guy.

That guy hits the floor, cracks his head, and he's dead. This guy's facing manslaughter now. Wow. And it's over like that. The same exact type of scenario. It was just luck of the draw that one didn't happen. And so you ask yourself all the time, you go, was that necessary? You know, I talk about the idea of looking at an event three days from

now is it going to really affect you know before you want to take that action like on a road rage incident you know guy cut you off especially you know here we're back in la again you know for me i bring back some amazing road rage stories you know from living here um but that urge before you do that you are you willing are you willing to take the consequences of this because what you think is going to be maybe just a verbal or or a gesture exchange could easily have you run off the road and somebody coming at you for physical violence it's happened i've had many of those people show up in my training um and are you prepared for that it doesn't pass the three-day you know the three-day test i talk about all the time is three days from now if you're sitting in a jail cell you know about this event saying okay was it worth it you know

at that point do you know did you really feel your your life was in jeopardy and that you had no options and you were devoid of choice and you had to take action very few things meet that threshold threshold or the other aspect i ask is you know three days from now you're six feet under in a grave and your family's lost you and everything. Again, does either of those things meet that threshold? And when you look at situations like that, you calm down a lot. You realize, Hey, you know, this guy's having a bad day. I'm just going to let him go. I'm going to let him take a deep breath. Yeah. I joke with people all the time, kind of half already. And it sounds kind of extreme, but I tell people all the time that, you know, conduct my life um in a manner that when i treat when i meet people i

don't know i basically assume they're six seconds away from a shooting spree and i don't want to be the one to trigger it yeah yeah so what does that mean it just means all the things that you talk about all the time you know how to how to live a great life yeah and how to be be that person of that unknown person even if they're a little bit aggressive with you or something yeah you know quickly if you can say hey you know like people talk about this all the time something as simple as guy getting aggressive with you or something you just you just interrupt them and you just go hey i'm tim yeah hey man nice to meet you you know sorry about what as soon as you say hey i'm tim or i'm lewis all of a sudden you're a person now. And it kind of does pattern interrupt.

But people don't do those things. People let their egos get away. And women are not immune from this. Women, especially on the road race instance, they get really – there's something about getting behind that wheel that they just get very free with their gestures. And unfortunately, I've had a lot of them have incidents where they they've and that's what motivated them to come for training yeah on that so you know the physical is an absolute must for people when i have them i want them to experience the physical because i want them to know what it takes if they if they ignore everything so if they

if you're going to ignore that that uncomfortable feeling and you're going to you're going to let the social awkwardness you know keep you from getting yourself out of that situation okay now i'm going to show you what it's going to take to get out of this because once it crosses the physical threshold and this person is coming at you for grievous bodily harm you're going to have to do some very straightforward things to take care of yourself yeah do that. And what's interesting is when I kinesthetically link it in with training, then they hear the preventative, the stuff that we've always heard, hey, don't go to the ATM at night.

All those things that you've heard a million times, but you still do whatever you want to do. Once you've had the physical aspect of the training, you understand what it takes, you go, you know what? I can get up 15 minutes early tomorrow and go to the ATM. I don't want it to get to this tomorrow. Yeah, I don't need to. I don't want it to get to this point. Yeah, I can do these behavior modifications, you know?

And that's, you know, that was a motivation for me for really writing the book. Training your mind correctly is the most important thing. I can train everybody physically. But if I have not got your mind wrapped around the subject correctly, and most, very few people do. And I'm talking like, I'm in Vegas. I have a lot of top MMA guys that are there, and a lot of them are my friends, and they've come to me for training, and they don't really have a good understanding of how to deal with violence. Outside of the ring.

Yeah, and they admit it. A lot of the guys admit it. A lot of guys take additional training, and they do some stuff, and I've got some really good friends, and they're fun guys to train. They're great. Really humble, you know, for the most part, most of the guys that I met. But what's interesting is they understand that the gamification of violence, it can only be gamified if we take injury out of it. So the way they train, they train to better their opponent. And in order to do that, if you just want to look at what is the difference between violence and combat sport look at the rules and the rules basically take out all injury to the human body yeah an injury to the human body is what makes us all the same an injury to the

human body is the one thing that we can all do to each other um now we all can't compete i can't get in the ring and compete with any of those top mma guys and under their rules and they're they're amazing athletes you know um they're good we all have a chance in violence you know and that's and i see it time and time again there's plenty of video i have of top mma competitors unfortunately out in the real world maybe being too aggressive or doing something and then being taken out by just normal guys really normal guys i have this one down in brazil these two fighters and i show it i show how great they are in the ring they're amazing in the ring and then i show them at a gas station where they're kind of rude to two girls and some just normal regular guys come in

and they can't handle the idea of a whole bunch of guys in an open area they're they go right into combat sport mode which is great and they're doing really good one-on-one and they're not paying attention to anything else. And that's when they both... Clocked in the bag. One guy ends up in a coma. The other guy was severely beaten on it. You know, and it's not because there's something wrong with them.

It's just how they train. They responded with a competition to guys that were using destruction. Yep. And that's just not a good mix when you go to that. What would you say to all the peacemakers out there that say violence is never the answer? They are living in a, especially if they're living in the United States,

the reason they're able to live the life they're able to live and the freedom they're able to live and everything there is because we've been extremely good at violence. I mean, the reason we as a human race exist is because we are by far the best species in the world at doing violence. And I don't mean that from a glorification standpoint. I just mean that if not, because we are not the biggest, fastest, and strongest. What makes us dangerous is our brains.

We're good. We know how to work together. We know how to do things. Violence is part of us. Now, what they're talking about, I would say to them, there is never a reason to use criminal violence. I absolutely agree with that. There is no reason for that. But when you are facing grievous bodily harm, devoid of choice.

Yeah, protect yourself. You don't have it. And, you know, I've done these talks. I've done these talks with pacifist groups and they've agreed with me, you know, on there. I've had tons of missionaries go through my training, you know, that they go through and they understand the idea of justified violence, you know, but you don't advocate violence, but they're absolutely right. I mean, I think what most people, I think what people do is that they, they misunderstand what, what you're talking about. It would be like saying, yeah, yeah. Violence is, you know, and violence just has that, that, you know, the name's so strong, you know, that word is so strong. You have to think of it objectively, you know, you have to think of it as a tool. So you have to think of the same way you would think of as a car,

you know, okay, a car can, you know, be great for transportation and everything. It can also, you know, mow a bunch of people down on a city street in France and, you know, you can do some horrible things with a car, but the car itself isn't the problem. It's how the car is used. And so violence definitely has a place in our society. And it has a place in us as, as, as civilians, as, as law abiding citizens, the tool of violence is absolutely something we all should have, you know, just like we all should have a fire extinguisher. I mean, the fact that people have say, you know, a fire extinguisher at their house, or they've bought flood insurance does not mean that they're trying to bring a flood into their life or they're trying to bring fire into their life. What they're doing is they're

saying, Hey, I realize there's a potentiality. It's rare, but there's a potentiality. This might be happen. And I've taken action. I'm going to have to do this class soon because I've got, you know, a ton of life insurance policies, disability insurance, business insurance. Even though I'm like, do I really need to spend this much money on this thing that I may never use? But I'm also like, would I regret not having it if something did happen to me? If I did get injured and I have all these expenses on my team,

would I be pissed at myself for not having the disability insurance that would cover my salary for the rest of my life or whatever it is for that term that I'm out and uh and that's the way I look at it would I regret it not having it like if I if I didn't do the training and I got injured would I regret and say I should have done the training yeah unless you feel so confident in your abilities to like take on something. And I'm, you know, I'm a big guy and I've,

you know, been in fights before, but I still think that I need the training. Like, even though I haven't done it yet, but I'm going to come and do one soon because it's just good to have a couple little extra tools. Like I never know if someone's coming at me or what to look at,

you know, what's the thing that you always look at when you're walking down the street, when you see other people? Are you looking at their hands first to see if they're, like, clenched or if they've got something in their pockets or if they're... It's communication.

Body language in general. Body language in general. So, you know, I talk about antisocial aggression and antisocial violence. So, you know, the big tattooed biker who's obnoxious at the bar, he's not the guy I'm worried about. You know's doing a display he's doing protecting himself he's letting everybody know that he's the guy and as long as you give him his social distance he's fine he's not the guy

but you look over in the back and there's the small latino you know gangbanger who's in there and he's just quietly slipping the knife out he's got something you know while everybody's paying attention to this guy and this is the guy who really because he's not going to let you know he's truly a predator and he's going to be asocial there's gonna be no communication on that and so that's what i train people when we train we train in total silence and so you know i i'm across from one of the the best mma gyms in uh vegas and stuff and the guys are great over there and i like to go over there and i lift weights over there i love to watch the training yeah some world-class guys are there all the time.

Awesome music. Love the way the guys do the grinds. They're always training. They go at it, boom, and after a good takedown or something, they help each other up and it's really cool. Go over to my place. No communication. No music.

People are no talking. Really? No talking. And if somebody's down on the ground, not because, you know, we're not violent with each other. You know, we're not, like, hurting people. but if you get knocked to the ground or something I'm not going to help you up why is that I'm not going to do it because it's not going to be in there in the street yeah no it's not going to be no you're not nobody's going to be there give me

a helping hand you're going to be stomping on you or something so what I try to do and what people tell me that has made the biggest difference in their life it's not the strikes I show them it's not the fact that I show them where to go which is all important stuff don't get me wrong the physical training it's the fact that i recognized when it went asocial i recognized when there was a lack of communication and all of a sudden oh wait a minute this guy's not communicating with me anymore you know he shut off communication therefore he's about to take action at that point and that's what saves people's lives it's kind of having that that instinct that awareness being aware of your surroundings yeah we've done that and the other the other thing i do training manipulations where and that's what saves people's lives. It's kind of having that instinct, that awareness, being aware of your surroundings.

Yeah, we've done that. And the other thing, I do training manipulations where I'll have everybody wear a ski mask. And the reason I have them wear a ski mask is because we get caught up in the social. And what's amazing with people is I'll show them all these areas that came by to get a result.

But prior to me doing the drill, they'll all be going basically for some sort of a head shot, some sort of a head communication shot or something like that. And there's many good targets here, don't get me wrong, but that's what they'll be focused on. They put the masks on, and all of a sudden they see the rest of the opportunities because they stop trying to communicate first.

An untrained guy will come in, he'll look at your face first, and then he'll look at a body because he's trying to communicate with you even though we're social animals we want to communicate the predators the ones that we have to worry about are the ones that know how to exploit that and they'll thank you they'll they'll get you to communicate while they're taking action yeah and that's that's really what you have to learn how to manipulate have you ever been in a situation where you missed the cues and you had to defend yourself?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've had situations where, and what has been lucky for me, you know, the great thing that I tell my students all the time is there's nothing magical about me. I've been 25 years of doing this stuff. I'm a world-class master close combat trainer. I've trained just about every type of elite unit there is out there. I've done it all over the world. countries done all that stuff in there i literally walk out this door right now catch a pipe to the back of the head i go down just like everybody else

exactly i'm not immune to it you know and that's the great thing about it it's like you know what scares everybody is also what should encourage everybody this works on everybody you know and understanding how to manipulate it it Now, the great thing about people that I train and, you know, somebody like myself is they have to get it right, you know, and that's a great thing. People have, you know, for the most part when they're doing violence, they have lousy accuracy and lousy follow through. And so they don't get a true injury to the human body. And that's where you can, you know, that's where you have the ability then, you know, to respond and and take advantage of that because it's the person that's the person that gets the first injury that usually you know ends up you know being the dominant you

know person in the in the equation there at that point whoever's going to win with violence and it's strange it's it's another difficult part of the subject in the book is the one thing that we have to switch when we're looking at acts of violence is one of those things where there's nothing to learn from the victim's perspective. And that's a hard thing for us because when we see an act of violence, we, how could the victim have undone the situation? And that puts us behind the eight ball at that point. And that's something that's hard. And training people to look at an act of violence from the successful use of the tool side is a real – it's one of the more difficult tasks I have for people. But once they do it, it completely changes the way they look at things and the tool. Well, you talk about the brain being the most powerful weapon. Why is that? people but once they do it it completely changes the way they look at things in the tool well you talk about the brain being the most powerful weapon why is that because everything starts at

brain everything you the brain will go where you the brain your body will go where the brain tells it to go so if you tell yourself i have no chance i i mean brains are cool you don't you're done or if you say, you know, you're looking at all throat, I can get that throat. And then the brain says, cool,

I know how to do that. I'll do that for you. You know, boom. But it's, it's just amazing. It's how we talk to ourselves. You talk about it all the time when you're,

when you're, you have some of the great people in here talking to them, how to use your brain. They're just using it for, you know, either business building, personal development, or something like this.

Relationships, health, yeah. The biggest, the most they i don't want to trump everybody but i'm telling you the most the thing that'll affect your life more than any of that you can get more money you can you can rebuild your self-esteem you can do all those things violence comes in your life man you can't undo it so if you can train your brain to understand violence and to how to respond to that and how to really protect yourself.

What I want people to do is I want to protect themselves. When they see an act of violence, I don't want them to do things that are going to make them an easier victim. What is that? Well, like looking at an act of violence and looking at it like, oh, look at this poor guy. How could he have undone that? What I want them to do is what the predators do.

I got to work. There's a whole section in here of the work that I did with corrections and talking to a lot of the top prison gang members through these guys and learning how they look at violence. Violence for them is a very different subject. Violence for them is like an entrepreneur looking at cash flow. They study it. It's precious stuff.

And so they have to get it right because violence allows them, like how we, a good sales and marketing campaign can fill our coffers and can give us the cash runway that we need. For them, that cash runway comes from the successful use of the tool of violence.

It allows them to control drugs, the yard. It allows them to control the streets.'s extremely powerful so they're very judicious in how they look at violence and they're very uh utilitarian so they don't look at it from an opinion standpoint they look at it from results what works so when they look when they were showing these prisoners like, you know, acts of violence, not one time did they ever see themselves from the victim's perspective. They always saw themselves as the person using the successful tool. They identified with that person, not just because they're violent, because that's the easy thing.

Oh, well, they're violent guys. No, they understood when the environment that they're living in, they can't afford to look at anything other than the successful use. They don't want their brain to associate look at anything other than the successful use. They don't want their brain to associate it with anything other than the successful use. And what they do is they'd say, oh yeah, that was good work. That guy did good work. The alpha alphas,

they go, yeah, that was good, but I would have done this. And they improve upon it. Now, you sit there and you go, wow, that's really harsh. Is it any more harsh than world-class golfer visualizing, you know his his putt you know he's gonna sit there he's gonna visualize he's he's on the he's on the fairway fairway fairway to uh i mean um t to fairway fairway to green and one putt yeah okay on there he doesn't go

you know t to the uh jungle, jungle to the beach, you know, and I'm going to four putt. You know, nobody visualizes that way. What's going to get the best result in that situation. And so the same thing, same thing with violence.

You know, when you look at it, you want to look at it from the successful use of the tool. It's hard because of the subject. And that's why I do. And this is why it's controversial. And this is why I got to give us a little brown. They,

they allowed me to write the book that I've been wanting to write for some time, because I think this day and age, we are so inundated with acts of violence that we just don't have answers for. And we look at these situations and we don't have anything in the toolbox. We've been told there's nothing we can do, which is a lie. A hundred years ago, you and I, one of the things that you and I would have to do, and the reason I say you and I is because it was mostly men back then that did it. We were not complete in our training, in our ability to have a family and go on until we knew how to take care of ourselves. And it was, you know, self-defense and self-protection was just an inherent rite of passage almost. And then it was

expected of you. You're expected to be your own first responder, not a brutal person or anything like that, but it was expected that you knew how to protect yourself and your family and your assets. That's gone away. We've outsourced that now to a great point. And like I said, because we've been so successful and we have such an amazing country that we don't have to deal with a lot of physical violence like our,

our, you know, grandfathers did and other generations had to do it doesn't mean that we're any less violent that's the one thing everybody has to understand people you know will sit there and quote these statistics and i see there's actually a really good motivation guy who i can't think of his name but he did a really good video but videos we're living the safest times ever and blah blah blah and he's taking all these quotes murder rates this this and this i'm saying yes the murder rates that way but you're looking at the wrong items murder rate being down

isn't because we're any less violent it's because our medical technology has gotten better so something an act of violence that would have killed you five years ago we now can respond faster we have better medical technology we save them but is that act of violence any less violent no it's just a manipulation of the statistics at that point and so we are not any less violent i was in um australia like i think about eight years ago and one of the guys pulled me aside in victoria victoria is kind of where they have their fbi academy and you know they were all saying how australia oh we're very peaceful in australia so this guy pulled it.

He goes, I want to share this with you. And he pulls out this study that they did. And of the five cities in Australia, if you added them all together, it would be a little bit bigger than New York. So it would be kind of one of our bigger cities on there. It would by far be the most violent city in the United States by quantum leaps and stuff.

It's just because it had been spread out all over the country that, you know, they didn't really look at it. He goes, yeah, he goes, we're really looking at this. He goes,

now we have strict gun laws. We have all these other things. He said, but you can't, you can't stop. He basically said that he goes, you can't stop the human brain. You know,

the human brain is what, if, if you have the intent to do violence, you will find a way to do it, which is what's scaring everybody with all these latest attacks, these latest terrorist attacks that are coming on. One of the terrorism experts, Waleed Fares, came in and he announced, I think it was during one of the European attacks. He said, we're seeing it. He goes, it's the one weapon that we can't defeat

and everybody what are you talking about he goes the human mind he goes we're up against the human mind now really yeah he came out and said that and i was just like oh my god i've been saying that for years that's great to i and not great but don't get me wrong i mean but that's the truth the truth is we can't you know we we can we can outlaw everything you know in britain they tried it like they've they have such strict laws on say uh on on knife laws there to the point to where if you want to go buy like a butter knife like a regular butter knife it has a warning label on it really do not misuse this you know do not stop i mean that's and it's a feel-good measure because the person that would you know they would pick up something pick up a screwdriver they could pick up whatever they'll use that you know what the real dangerous thing is the fact that would, you know, they would pick up something, pick up a screwdriver, they could pick up whatever they'll, they'll use that.

You know what the real dangerous thing is the fact that you have something that wants to do violence to you. And what's really scaring us now is this idea of just using everyday tools, everyday things like cars and stuff like that, and just attacking, you know, because now we're seeing that, yeah, the human mind, if it's given opportunities, which by studying, when I went in in i studied all the prison gangs you see how innovative they are these are guys literally with nothing and they're able

to cobble together things and create weapons and do things in environments that you and i just can't imagine it could ever happen yeah i mean i remember hearing stories of my brother when he was in prison for four and a half years just like the crazy stuff that would go down, uh, you know, from inmates on the yard or at night or whatever. It's just like the, I would never want to be in there. No, I mean, in the time that I was there, I, I had, uh, um, I had a grudging respect and I have to say this carefully because it sounds like I'm glorifying these guys, but I had a grudging respect when I I have to say this carefully because it sounds like I'm glorifying these guys, but I had a grudging respect when I studied some of their training methodologies. And I don't mean training methodologies just there,

but training methodologies from even an entrepreneurial standpoint. The books they read, all the same books that every entrepreneur reads. You know, they'll be like 48 miles apart. The prints, you know, they'll sit there and look at abnormal psychology, all the things that we do. The differentiation is they have a heavy dose of anatomy in there. Wow. Understanding like the organs and this and that. Well, because the one Mexican mafia guy that they interviewed there, he was one of their head guys that had deflected and he was given.

He said, yeah, he goes, you don't understand. He goes, we study anatomy because violence is our currency. He goes, we have to be good at doing violence. We have to be good at killing because that gives us our power on that. And what's interesting is it's the only thing, like I looked at that book list that he outlined, and I looked at the JFK Special Operations Officer course and what they're required to look at it at Fort Bragg. Almost every book was the same there, except for anatomy and physiology.

They ignore, our first responders are ignoring the basics of what to do with the human body and everything, which I think is really telling and interesting. Crazy, man. Let's say, what are the three things, if someone can't go to one of your workshops or a self-defense workshop that they choose not to, what would you say are the three things if someone can't go to one of your workshops or self-defense workshop that they choose not to. What would you say the three things they should have in their tool belt whether from first I'm guessing it's instincts and awareness of the situation and feeling if something's off like to be aware and to do the awkward or uncomfortable thing.

Yeah. thing yeah i don't know if that's the first thing but what would be the three things that everyone should have in their tool belts if they want to have something in terms of self-defense it's not that you have this in the toolbox they should have this in their awareness number one phone this is the biggest distraction anywhere i've got a video in Seattle on a bus. Everybody's lost their phone like this. There's a guy walking down the middle of the aisle with a.45, robbing people, taking their phones,

taking all their stuff. Nobody's communicating with each other. No one's noticing. No one's feeling it. We're this close to each other and this is happening to you and I have no awareness. And literally this one guy is there and the gun comes right to here. He's not even aware. And he goes, oh!

And he's the only guy that takes action. And so what does he do? He's there. With this hand, he deflects and gets up, and he penetrates. He actually goes towards the guy, which is a really good move. Penetrates in. In this hand, he has his phone. What do you think he does with it?

Hits him over there. You'd think, right? Yeah, yeah. What does he do? He's trying to stuff it into his phone. What do you think he does with it? Hits him over it? You'd think, right? Yeah, yeah. What's he do? He's trying to stuff it into his pocket. Why? He's so used to, like, this is my phone. Protecting the phone.

His life is on the line. His phone. Smash it in the eye or the throat or something, right? I show this all the time. People are, like, shocked when they see it. They go, you don't understand. There's a call. Now, good news is the rest of the group jumped on him.

Everything's good. Got away. He got to seven people before that happened oh and they were so immersed in our technology this these things are great don't get me wrong they're awesome they're but what they've done to us this the ear buds you know i i mean people are just taking away sensory systems these are all things that you've heard them before but until you see it until you literally and the one thing about closed circuit tv now is we have all these acts of violence that we see all these criminal acts where you can just see people being taken advantage of that'll cut down probably 95 percent

of it and it's hard because we're so used to earbuds we're so used to like and we like that privacy we like to be able to get on to a subway or something like that and not have to talk to anybody you know that's the case keep your eyes open yeah and so that's probably the only one thing i can tell everybody is it's it's taking us over at that point um then i would say you know the general awareness thing is the other thing is just paying attention to your gut feelings on that and the third thing is checking your ego yes and what i mean by it's so easy and we're so, we live in a world where we assume we know what the other guy's thinking. We assume we're on the same page. And I come from a world because of who I see in my clients where I understand, no, we actually live in a world that's

full of disproportional responses. And so you and I might think we're in a verbal altercation and we can say something you know i can i can you know i can start using expletives with you and i can hey mf or whatever and that's okay for me because my friends and i talk like that to each other it's not okay with you that with you that is a real threat that responds with an overwhelming source of violence at that point i heard uh i heard an interview with actually one of our friends, Ryan Holiday, and he was talking in one of his books. He was talking about the fact that he said, oh yeah, you know, he was talking about the gang members and he said, you know, this gang member, you know, he's tagging. He's responding because somebody crossed out his tag and he said, you

know, if he just lived a higher life, you know, if he just lived a higher life, you know, if he could do that. And I was thinking to myself at the time, I talked to Ryan about this afternoon, Ryan said, God, I didn't think about it that way. What he doesn't understand is, what most people don't understand is we see a mark being X'd out. He sees, oh, my ability to make money and territory has just been challenged. If I do not respond to this, I'm going to lose this whole section. And this is it. This is how I make my money. This is how I love this, how I survive. And oh, not only that, they're going to come after me if I show weakness at that point. So what to you and I seems is a ridiculous,

you know, paint war that's going on to them has real meaning. Wow. And so it's all context that you think about it. Sure. We can avoid so much by not playing into that and not allowing our egos to get with us. And I get it, man. When I was a young guy, I responded to a lot of things I shouldn't have when I was there. I was overly confident.

I was in the special operations community. I was doing intelligence work. I was in South America. I thought you had all the answers. Yeah. And so I did some dumb things when I was there, I was overly confident. I was in the special operations community. I was doing intelligence work. I was in South America. I thought you had all the answers. Yeah. And so I did some dumb things when I came back and I let my ego get the better of me. I wanted to show off.

I wanted to show people how good I was at fighting and stuff like this. How's that feel when you got a stab in the arm? Well, it wasn't until I lost one of my friends that I realized it's over like that. It's not worth it. Yeah.

It doesn't matter how good you are. No. And over what, you know? Recently I heard there's a great MMA commentator, former heavyweight champ, Boz Rutten, hilarious guy, great guy. But he told a story, and I thought it was really telling. I thought it was really – I really had a lot of respect for him for telling this story. He was in Amsterdam.

I believe it was Amsterdam. And he was at a bar and he got these guys were giving a hard time and and he he suckered into it and he went out back and two of them jumped him and he beat the hell out of him and he knocked one guy down boom he knew the second guy he really hit the guy hit his head and boz ran and he tells about a terror-filled night in a hotel room where he was literally kind of covered in the other guy's blood just thinking the police and Boz ran, and he tells about a terror-filled night in a hotel room where he was literally kind of covered in the other guy's blood, just thinking the police were going to come get him, and they didn't.

He conveyed that. They got him. Yeah, he was fine. He was fine. The guy was there. There was no conviction, nothing or anything like that. But Boz knew, by the grace of God, and he realized, oh, my God, not only was it not worth it, it would have taken everything away from him.

His whole life would be over. Yeah, over something that was completely ego-based at that point. And I thought for a guy like that to admit something like that was really kind of cool because a lot of those guys don't like to tell stories like that. They like to show a little bit of humanity, basically, on something like that. And that was it.

And it's just not worth it, man. I mean, violence, the way I look at it is, you know, people ask me all the time, you know, uh, how, how can you relate?

What, what do you, what do you mean by violence? And I said, well, I'll usually ask a group of people, Hey, how many,

how many people in this class, you know, like it's one of my classes, how many people in this class know how to swim? And, you know, I'll get, you know,

just about everybody, you know, raises their hand for the most part. And I'll say, okay, of those of you that know how to swim, has anybody in here ever had to swim for their life and a few hands will still stay up usually and along with mine because i've had to swim for my life a couple of times wow and i said okay of any of you that ever had to swim for your life would you ever want to

experience that again and everybody's hand comes down and and that's what real violence is if you hear somebody bragging about i got in this fight i did that he chose to use violence that was this he wasn't a voided choice people that experience real violence don't want to talk about it don't want to ever have it happen to them again and are just very thankful that they survived it you know it's a tool that you know that you hope you never have use, but you're so thankful if you have the information, you know, at that time. Because unfortunately, you know, like my tagline normally, you know, for everybody is violence is rarely the answer. But when it is, it's the only answer. And that's the truth. And that's why this is the provocative question is when is violence the answer?

Because we've been told it's never the answer. And that's why this is the provocative question is when is violence the answer? Because we've been told it's never the answer. And that's a lie. There's actually a time, but you have to clearly define it. And that's what we're trying to do with this. I love it, man. I'm excited for this. Make sure you guys pick up a copy. When violence is the answer, learning how to do what it takes when your life is at stake. Check it out, timlarkin.com. A couple of questions left for you. This one's called The Three Truths. I don't know if I asked you this last time, but you've written many books. You've done workshops for two decades.

You've met with the top fighters, leaders in the world from all different walks of life. Let's say it's your last day and you don't have any work, video, books out there. It's all been erased, but you get to leave a message to the world that is your three truths, the three things that you would share with the world, whether it be three lessons or three ideas.

You got to write it on a piece of paper, and that's all people would have to remember you by are these three truths. What would you say are yours? First one is pretty easy. don't waste any time on the wrong relationship it is probably the biggest if i look back on my life it is the biggest time vampire that i've had trying to make a bad relationship work you know um it affects every aspect of your life and if i tell any young i tell my son this all the time, I tell everybody, because you can get caught up, especially if you're a guy

and you try to be like the white knight type thing. So that would be one. Number two is you have to follow your path. You cannot avoid your path. You know, Steve Pressfield talks about it all the time. He's the reason I wrote this book. You know, I met him years ago and he encouraged me to do this, but his whole thing about resistance, you know, it's going to get you sooner or later. Whatever that is, whatever's in you

is going to come out and you've got to let it, you've got to let that thing go because the more you avoid it, and there's brilliant ways we all figure out how to avoid it. You know, we can avoid it through a bad relationship. We can avoid doing our real work through, you know, um, you know, saying, well, I gotta take care of the kids. I gotta do all this other stuff, but it's going to eat at you. You know, during that I've seen, I've seen literally three people in my life not follow what they needed to do. And it took a toll on them on there. So it'd be that. And then the last one is look at the unconventional, look at things. You're going to probably learn some of the best information.

Like with this information, I learned some of the best information from the worst people, you know, the people that you thought had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I'm not saying that's, this was for my path but i would say look look where nobody else is looking you're going to find some really interesting stuff you know when it was jarring when i looked here you know for this particular thing when i when i went there and every time i've looked in the unconventional path i found some really interesting material that i wouldn't find anywhere else and And I see too many people just following, just, just, you know, they, they, they just run down the same path. Everybody else is running down,

you know, and you find your real gems and you find a lot of it with people who aren't very good at communicating. You know, you're gonna find some, there's some real difficult personalities out there that you can learn some amazing stuff from, but you have to be able to put the time in. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Is there anything missing from your life? That's a hell of a question. Yes. Yes.

Of course. What is that? Of course, there's stuff missing from my life. What's the main thing missing? There's not enough time to do everything you want to do. At this stage of the game, I had hoped to have spent my time building more of a instructor base than I have. You know, like to pass the information on. Oh, like certifying instructors. Yeah, and so what I'm doing, instead of doing, you know, we've trained so many people.

And I do have a good group of instructors and we've done that. But we all look at each other going, you know, and so we're trying to now archive everything so it outlives us and stuff but it's something that i should have been doing 20 years ago and getting that path you know and put that time in now so i'd have those people sure and you know i regret that and and that's missing you know professionally from my life got it got it cool um well before i ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you for a moment for your courage to share and talk about things that most people don't want to talk about. And to give us tools, humanity tools, to protect good people when bad things happen. Because I think that's when we should have this information. Not using it as a weapon just because we're hurt or we're upset or something in life.

But I really believe you're helping a lot of people create awareness that could save their life. So I want to acknowledge you for all the work you do and for lifting humanity up as opposed to putting humanity down. Appreciate that. Thank you. Of course. Make sure you guys, again, get the book, When Violence is the Answer.

It's out right now, or you can pre-order it. If it's not out, it's out in a few days. Learning How to Do What It Takes When Your Life is at Stake by New York Times bestselling author Tim Larkin. Where can we connect with you online? I know you have a free video series for this too. When people get the book, they can get access to a free series. Is that right? Yeah. If they go to either timlarkin.com or we actually have for the book, whenviolencesanswer.com. If you pre-order the book, then you just come back and just sign up and I'm going to give you a 10-module course. Sure.

I get to go in, you know, you and I talked. I put a lot into this book that I wasn't able to share. Yeah. And so I get to do all the additional materials over that time. Video lessons. Yeah. Do you show like techniques in there as well? Yeah, we're going to show everything.

I'm going to show video. I'm going to show actual videos of acts of violence to illustrate things. I'm going to show interviews from the prisoners, you know, and just really good stuff that really highlights what's in the book. So if you can't come to a workshop of yours, all you got to do is get the book.

You get access to free training online. For the people that support, they're good enough to support me with an order, especially on such a controversial subject. I'm going to go out of my way to make sure they get their value. Sure, sure. I love it.

Make sure you guys pick up a copy. And then you're Tim Larkin everywhere on social media? Yeah, I'm going to go out of my way to make sure they get their value. Sure, sure. I love it. Make sure you guys pick up a copy. And then you're Tim Larkin everywhere on social media? Yeah. Yep. Tim Larkin. If you see me, I'm on TFT,

Tim Larkin on Twitter. And then Tim Larkin on Facebook. Instagram. Instagram. I'm there. Final question for you is what's your definition of greatness? I should know.

I should know you're going to ask me know. I should know you didn't ask me that. I listen to you all the time with this. Probably the real definition of greatness is the ability to have the courage to do whatever it is that you have in you to actually step out there. In fact, afterwards, I'm going to ask you to give somebody a push that needs a push. Um, but there are so many people that have things they want to share. And, you know, the, the definition of the greatness are those that take that fear and make it happen and use it as a motivator and get going. And I see so many people that just, they have great information to share and they just won't take that fear and make it happen and use it as a motivator and get going. And I see so many people that just,

they have great information to share and they just won't take that next step. And for me, that's where the greatness comes from because that's when we get information that we don't get. I get to hear some amazing people on your podcast who that's what they did. They, they stepped forward and what's really kind of cool is you, you highlight this a lot.

The other good thing is you find out these are normal people. These are guys that have the same fears as we all have. I mean, that's really what I get out of listening to your show all the time is the story behind the guy or girl and this fact that, hey, they're normal people. They have normal challenges, normal fears,

and none of that stopped them from taking that next step. And to me, that's just, if you only get one shot at life, that's the greatness you can give. That's it. Tim, thanks so much. You got it, that's, that's just, if you only get one shot at life, that's, that's the greatness you can give. That's it. Tim, thanks so much. You got it, brother. Appreciate it. Good seeing you. There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this one. And if you did, as always,

share it out with your friends, let them know, spread this information of greatness. So others may benefit. If you have a friend in your life who you think could use some extra information on self-defense, or if you've had someone go through something like this before, make sure to share this out with them. Just send them a text, send them an email with the direct link lewishouse.com slash 530. Or if you're listening to this on your podcast app on your iPhone or Android, just click on the share button and send it to a friend right now.

Always tag me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook at Lewis Howes and let me know what opened up most for you. I'd love to continue the conversation over on social media and make sure to check out Tim's new book. Again, when violence is the answer, make sure to check it out because it's some powerful stuff in there. In my opinion, violence shouldn't be the answer, but sometimes we need to defend ourselves. We need to make sure that we set ourselves up to win

and really just be aware of our surroundings. You know, sometimes people are going through a challenging time in their life and they make dumb decisions. And you want to make sure you set yourself up to avoid those decisions that they make where you don't have to be violent because you're mindful of your surroundings, your environment, and you are supporting yourself and being safe. I hope you enjoy this one. As always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you.