528 | Firearms & Branding | Solo Episode

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro to a New Format
• 7:05 Reflections on the Firearms Community
• 20:00 My Journey with Firearms
• 44:00 The Importance of Fundamentals
• 57:00 Combatting the "We" Mentality
• 1:12:00 Branding and Selling Yourself

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, welcome to a different, different type of Protectors episode. This is going to be a solo podcast. You know, I've been thinking about doing this for a while and what these will be is they're going to be kind of like short little clips, kind of like a recap of the last episodes we've had, but also little tidbits of information. I've kind of come across that I wanted to get out to there, to all you, the Protector community, and one thing that's been on my mind a lot lately is, no, not politics, not religion, not writing, not books, and yeah, that stuff's on my mind a lot, but it's the firearms community, it's this community we have and that's really what it is. It's a community. It's a lot of us that get together that want to help others succeed. And yes, there are the influencer types out there and they're trying to pawn everything off. And I saw a really good thing today, before we get into the main topic, was that some people know every piece of equipment an ex-Navy SEAL has and they want to mirror that equipment. And what I find funny about that it is it's just it's not realistic. I talk a lot about my everyday carry here and there in different podcasts and around people like that. And I tell you what I'm not carrying a full-size firearm with seven mags and something I could fix a bayonet with. You know what I mean? It's just a lot of the things you hear out there are just not realistic. While that gear might have worked for some ex-Navy SEAL while they're on deployment or what they do on their post-life, it may not necessarily be for you. The training they get or the training anybody else gets to when they get to that certain level, may not necessarily be for you. The firearms you want you mimic, what they want or what they carry may not necessarily be for you. Why do I say this? It's because we get wrapped around the equipment axle. We get wrapped around the firearms axle. So many guns you could pick up, you could point them at the target, you could pull the trigger and that group is going to be great for what you needed to do. And I've been around firearms for a while.

Speaker 1: 2:36

That's another thing I was thinking about this past week is my poor dad, when I was 12 years old and listen, I grew up in a family you know. My dad grew up in Brooklyn. There wasn't a lot of firearms there. They weren't a military, law enforcement or firearm centric family. They were just hey, you know what? Blue collar, go to work, come home, do your thing. It wasn't like a firearm centric family, but I was, and I think that had a lot to do with like my 1980s movies of watching like all the different war movies out there, like you know, platoon and the Rambo movies and everything else like that. But I really really got into firearms because I played war like religiously.

Speaker 1: 3:24

So every day, starting at 12 years old, every single day, I don't know all day, like Dad, can I have a gun? No, dad, can I have a gun? No, dad, can I have a gun? No, dad, I really, really want to have a gun, no. And I remember I think I was gosh, I think it was, I think I was around 13 years old. It was a year at least a year, maybe two that I really pestered him.

Speaker 1: 3:53

But I remember Christmas. I was digging around in the basement and spoiler alert, if you do not know that Santa, the presents provided by Santa, are from your parents. This may not be the podcast for you, you may be a little too young, but I remember digging around in my basement and I found a box of 22, like 22 long rifle shells, and I'm like what is going on here? I didn't dig around anymore, but when I found it I knew, and I knew that that Christmas was going to be a lot different than any other Christmas I had, because, yeah, you know, kids want bikes, they want this, they want that. But I remember that Christmas morning I got my Marlin 22 long rifle and it had like that tubular type thing where you just load up all the bullets in a tube and I was like man, this is the best thing ever and I remember just shooting religiously as much .22 as I possibly

Speaker 1: 4:57

could. From there, you know, my firearms went from that to a Ruger 10-22 because I had the detachable magazine. And then I pestered my dad into buying a Mossberg 500 riot shotgun. I don't know why they call it a riot shotgun, I think that's what they called it back then, but the Mossberg 500. And then fast forward a few years and I'm in Fort Carson, colorado, when I'm in the military, and I bought my first Ruger P89, my first pistol, out of a drugstore. You can literally go into a drug store in Colorado and buy a pistol, and it was a Ruger P89. And you know what that thing did? It just shot straight. It hit the

Speaker 1: 5:51

target. When I finally eventually learned how to use a firearm for real, as far as pistols is, when I went to the US Border Patrol in January 2000. But before then I had all sorts of different things. As soon as I bought that first pistol I was like, oh man, I need this, I need that. My next major pistol the one I love and I can't believe I got rid of it was an H&K USP .40 cal. But yeah, it all comes down to throughout my career and throughout

Speaker 1: 6:25

my life. Because when you get issued a firearm like me, my first one was the Beretta 96D 40 caliber when you get issued that, you don't have any options. That is your gun. Yeah, some agencies will give you the option, but if you're a GS7 or GS5, you can't afford to go out and buy this $1,000, $2,000 SIG or whatever they cost back then. So you use what you got and you become proficient in it and you learn that weapon. That's your lifeline. That is your lifeline. That's what

Speaker 1: 6:59

you're carrying. Throughout my career I've carried SIGs. I've carried Glock. A majority of my career was with the Glock 19. Sigs, glocks, this that they all did the job. Some cost more than others, some had better trigger pulls than others. That Breda 96D felt like I was pulling a 50-pound weight back. It was so heavy and I'm just, you know, over-elaborating, but it was. But they all did one thing they all worked when I needed them to. They all worked when I needed

Speaker 1: 7:37

them to. And that is what you need when you're going to find a firearm, one that is going to work when you need it to and one that is going to put holes on targets or things that you have to do to protect yourself. You have to make sure that it's going to work and you can be proficient with it and you enjoy firing it. If you can Listen, if you're issued something you may not necessarily enjoy firing it. The last agency I was a firearms instructor for was issued the Glock 2240 caliber. And listen, I can make that thing work just as good as anything else. Was it a fun gun to shoot? Not so much. I really didn't like it. But you know what it worked. I never had a failure with that one, never had any misfires with that one. I can tell you, in my career I've had some guns that just shit the pot. But listen, when you are going to get out there and you're going to buy something, you're going to try something out. Make sure it fits

Speaker 1: 8:46

for you. That's kind of the grasp and the concept of this week of firearms, because I do talk a lot about firearms and we don't really talk about it a lot on the podcast. But outside of the podcast and the Protectors Foundation and the Protectors, this and that, a firearm is one of the main tools out there and is one you're going to use and it's one you're going to use when you're off duty. And this is for the civilians who listen to this story, listen to this podcast as well. A lot of you love firearms, you love shooting. Now, the other part I really want to talk about

Speaker 1: 9:18

is practicing. Whether you're new to firearms or whether you have carried a firearms for 40 years, 30 years, 20 years, 10 years, or whether you're a civilian, use that old adage of becoming an expert at the basics, at the fundamental basics, of becoming an expert at the basics. At the fundamental basics, you can fire the best looking group in the world. You could just sit there and you could rapidly fire off five or six rounds and that group looks great. But can you draw, can you reload? Can you deal with a malfunction? Can you deal with a misfeed? Can you deal with hey, your magazine wasn't seated. Do you slap, rack, reassess, re-engage? Can you do the basics? Can you draw fast? Can you draw fast fire accurately? Can you draw fast fire accurately and move to the left, to the right, to the rear, to the front? Can you move, draw fast fire and then move behind cover? Can you do all of these fundamental firing mechanisms, these techniques, before you want to move on2,000 pair

Speaker 1: 10:41

of nods? Or you go out and you buy whatever, that ex Navy seal, green Bray or tier one operator or the SWAT guy, whatever, before you go out and buy their gear, that thousand dollar, $2,000, $3,000 pair of nods. Can you work your firearm, your pistol, at a a solid proficiency to where you, your adrenaline is pushed up to the max and your tunnel vision is starting to set in. Your blood pressure is like whoa, what is going on here? Can you draw and fire rapidly to stop the threat Before you go on to? And you know, listen, I have a ton, a ton of respect and a ton of friends out there that are in the firearms training community and it is great that they teach CQB. It's great that they do all these things, but before you go and take a course for doing one person, two person, team, cqb and stuff, make sure you are proficient in the basics. It's not that hard if you just practice, practice, practice and get very good at that. Then take it to the next level. Take that to the next level, level up, as they say. So, firearms it's so true that these are equipment that these are great things. But I look at firearms a little bit different, just because, man, I love them. Some people love 66 Corvettes, some people love Mustangs and all sorts of other things. I look at firearms as almost like a piece of art, like there was just so much to it. Okay,

Speaker 1: 12:32

that is. One thing I wanted to talk about this week is really just when we can get into EDCs and and carry and everything else. Listen, I carry a little Smith Bodyguard 381. I go to the grocery store. I got my little Glock 9mm 43X. There are so many different things you can carry. But the next thing I want to talk about today is something that is a little difficult for people in the protector community. It is extremely difficult for the people in a protector community to do this, and there's two different areas I'm going to touch on today. One is getting jobs, and why this area is so really tough for the protector community, and the other thing is selling things and why it's

Speaker 1: 13:19

so tough. There's one thing I've met, one type of person I've met I mean granted, there's more, but it's that type of person who was in the military. Are they a cop? Are they a first responder? There's someone that at one point in their life took an oath. So many of these people have a hell of a time going from we to I, we to I. It's always been about the team. I mean, when we're talking about the authentic ones, we're talking about the people who truly are empathetic, who are truly in this for the right reason, who aren't like listen, they're 80, 90% of really good people. 10% of that we'll kick them off to the side, but we're talking about those 80 or 90% right now who took that oath. They, they raised their right hand and took that oath to protect others. They're protectors. This also goes for a ton of the civilian community too, who are always given back and always having a tough time going from we

Speaker 1: 14:31

to I. In certain circumstances and I did write my book Pivot. I have to give a quick shout out to that and, like I always say all the time, that book is priced at cost because it is my way of continuing my mission. But one thing about that book is I wrote that book because I've always got these questions about people's resumes and being a hiring manager at one time with the Fed and being a hiring manager at one time with the Fed, I've always come across veterans and protectors types that whenever they're giving a situation out in an interview or on their resume, it's always about we. And that's the toughest thing. It's tough to boost your own self up because it's like you're humble and you don't want to have that ego and we see the ego types all the time. But you try to be humble. But the thing is, when you're trying to get a job, when you're trying to get a new position or even a promotion, it's not about we anymore, or even a promotion, it's not about we anymore. Yeah, you could say you're a team player, a team leader, you're this, you're that. But there are certain circumstances in this interview process where you have to say I, I did this and I see that in the resume summaries, the bullets, where it's we, this, that. But you have to get to I to sell yourself and it's tough. Who wants to have that ego? So just a little word of advice today if you're going into these interviews or you're going for jobs and everything, it's time to look at you and get from we

Speaker 1: 16:19

to I. The other thing, too, is marketing. Marketing and branding. You could tell I have what? 67, 6,600 followers on Instagram. That's a lot, believe me, that's a lot. But it comes down to, it is tough to try to sell yourself and I don't like that. Nobody likes that. If you love selling yourself, then hey, more power to you. You got some great, great grit, you know. But the thing is I'm going to give a really big shout out right now to Marcus Torgerson. Just wrote a book. He's very proud of it and Marcus is always giving back to people, he's always doing things, he's always improving himself and he's trying to spread a good message out there. And he wrote a book called Be a man what the Fire Truck and I'm so used to like. You know, publicists and everybody else getting old. You know, if you listen to 500 something episodes of this podcast, you probably know a lot of those work with with authors, and a lot of those interviews are based on publicists and marketing managers getting

Speaker 1: 17:33

holding me. And I've noticed with marcus, and I noticed what a lot of you out there, a lot of these self-published authors and a lot of ones that don't have marketing teams behind you it's tough for you to sell yourself. It's tough for you to get out there and be like, huh, I wrote this book, I want people to read it, but it's also, it's your book, it's your lifeblood, it's something you poured into that you want more people to read it, but you don't want to sell. And it's so, so weird to get into this space and be like, okay, well, I got to sell this book, I got to do interviews, I got to do that. But to be humble at the same time, and I'm trying to tell people, like Marcus said, like you're allowed to write down what you know. You have the 20 or 30 years worth of experience. You can sell this book. You can. You're building a future for you and

Speaker 1: 18:32

your family. That's what you're doing when you do these things, whether that's you pick up a brand or whether you do podcasts or whatever and you get to the point where you have to make money off of it or you would desire to make money off of it. You have to get from weed to eye. It's almost the same thing with getting that job. You have to say, okay, I put this on paper, I did this and, yes, you have help. We all have had help, but I need to make something and it's tough to brand. It's tough to do this and I watched the influencers and I watched the ones who get into these echo chambers and they just get into these echo chambers and they just they spew hate or they spew other rhetoric or they or they just emboldened themselves with whatever, and they have a certain mentality that a lot of us don't have. They're always the I generation. They're always about I, never about we to I. But it's okay to brand yourself. It's okay to get to that point where you want to push your product, something you believe in. It's okay to be doing that. And that's from Marcus. I really wanted to get that message out there and this is for everybody else who wants to build something else, that includes being creative. Else who wants to build something else, that includes

Speaker 1: 20:01

being creative. Listen, my life has not always been podcasting. There are certain reasons I got into podcasting and I needed an outlet. Most of my life has been the military or law enforcement or federal law enforcement, but there comes a point in your life where you want to do something different. You want to build something, and it's okay to do that. It's okay to stumble while you're doing it. I've stumbled so much over the years trying to build but it's okay to stumble and it's okay to be creative. It's okay to take a step out of who you are and what you think

Speaker 1: 20:36

you are. Your identity doesn't have to be the job. Start building outside of the job. Start building. I see Aaron Lohman doing it all the time Huge fat loser. He's been on a show a couple of times. I'm always following him. He's building something outside of the job. Use the job to help you build something too. Get the experience, work with people, learn Network. That's kind of. My only two preaches this week are the firearms and getting from weed to eye and

Speaker 1: 21:11

branding yourself. I do want to give a big shout out to my two previous episodes before this because we got into some deep topics. Eric Tung, police commander for years. Leo, building something, getting something going, writing, speaking. It was great to talk to Eric because we got into some deep topics in the LEO community. It was great to talk to Eric because we got into some deep topics in the LEO community, and the same thing with Dr Jenna Casas last week talking about rural I love trying to say that word rural police agencies out there and dealing with mental health. Please check out those past two episodes I believe they're 526

Speaker 1: 21:53

and 527. But yeah, this is going to be. I'm going to try to do this once a week, try to give a recap and try to get some life lessons, because you know, in all actuality, I love, love, love, love telling people about my lessons learned, and I've learned a lot of different lessons over the past 52 years. I shouldn't say 52. Let's say when I first started walking, that first time I fell down. So maybe I don't even know if that's when I first started walking, but let's just say 50, 50 years. A lot of lessons in him, a lot of things I'd love to talk about. So, everybody, I hope you're doing great and thanks for listening.