176 – Active Shooters Beware: Tom interviews Alain Burrese

Episode 176 – Alain Burrese
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey, everybody, it's Tom here with episode 176 of Screw the Commute podcast. We are beginning Vetrepreneurs Month. And this is where we're going to highlight veterans who are entrepreneurs. And there is nobody else on this earth that I can have in the kickoff version of this than Alain Burress. And I'll tell you why. I mean, he's one of the my best friends in the world and he's one of the few people in the world I would trust my life to. And that's dead serious or alive serious? I hope so. So, yeah, he's a great guy. We'll get into all the stuff he's doing and his credentials are just through the roof. So introduce him to you in a minute. And hoping that you didn't miss Episode 175, it was one of my Monday training sessions and this one I talked about the best advertising bargains on the web. You will just love this. You're gonna get sometimes ads for one, two, three or four cents. So you want to check that out. Please tell your friends about this podcast, too, and especially if you have any veteran friends. I think they'll really enjoy this month hearing about what they're. There are other brethren are doing so. Tell them they go to screwthecommute.com or they go to items or any of their favorite podcasts listening places. And you can also tell them to grab a copy of our podcast app from the app store or they can go just to screwthecommute.com/app where we have complete instructions to show you how to use all the fancy features so you can take us with you on the road. And I've got a great big freebie for you for listening to this podcast. It's my twenty seven dollar e-book, How to Automate Your Business. And just one of the tips in this e-book has saved me over seven and a half million keystrokes, allowed me to handle up to one hundred fifty thousand subscribers and 40000 customers with just one part time temp person. I mean, the only time I started hiring a bunch more people was when the accountant told me I had too much retained earnings. I'm like, Are you kidding me? I said, I'd rather buy get some help over here and really expand the business than just pay extra taxes. Let's see what else I got for you here. Oh, well, you find that at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Now, our sponsor for this month is the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia. We are approved by the Department of Defense to participate in the myCAA military spouse scholarship program. Now we give just our school gives a ninety five hundred dollar scholarship to military spouses, any military, any law enforcement or first responders. And the myCAA program, part of the Department of Defense, gives 4000 so they can get a total of thirteen thousand five hundred dollars towards their education. And this education can take them anywhere they happen to be deployed. They can both study online and legitimately get hired online. So they're not going after crappy jobs every two years or so. So I would tell you more about that later, but you can check it out at IMTCVA.org/military. Of course, everything will be in the show notes this is episode 176. So you go to screwthecommute.com/176.

[00:03:58] All right. Let's get to the main event. Alain Burrese is author of Survive a Shooting and director of Active Defense Training for Reflex Protect. He's the leading authority on active shooter response. His programs teach strategies to survive active threats and how to defend yourself, both empty handed and with Reflex Protect, a revolutionary new non-lethal defensive spray being used in hospitals, schools, churches and businesses across the country. Alain, are you ready to screw? The commute.

[00:04:33] I'm ready Tom.

[00:04:36] You've been on long time ago. I don't remember what episode it was, but it's been a while since I've had a chance to talk to you. So. So good to talk to you, man. You're in a new new business endeavor, I hear.

[00:04:49] I am you know, we were I was on one of your first podcasts and I think it was in single digits. We haven't seen each other in person for a little while.

[00:05:00] We've got to get some workouts in there. Yeah. I think I'm to the point where I can work out a little bit. Now I was in that hunting accident then. And that would've been a great short story had I gotten shot. But no, this fell on a log. So. So, yeah. Tell everybody what you're doing. You got. You were on your own totally for a long time. And then you decided to team up with another company. Right.

[00:05:25] I did. I mean, I was teaching active shooter response, you know, to survive a shooting. I'm still doing it. You know, teaching those courses and in those courses, I was teaching how to use, you know, hand defense and improvised weapons. And then I met the CEO of this company. And, you know, I've met Joe Anderson with Reflex Protect, and he showed me this new defensive spray that they came up with. And he said, what do you think? And I was like, that's the missing piece. And I started promoting it. And then last Christmas, Joe came up and said, Hey, Alain, why don't we work together? You have the training piece. I have a product piece. And I think you have already said they go together. So let's put these together and we'll teach people how to survive shootings. And we'll also will include this product instead of teaching them to improvise. Why don't we give them a tool that was specifically made for workplace violence? And that's what we're doing. We're teaching people how to prepare for and defend against active threats. And we're providing a tool to help them with that fight or attack back defensive piece. We're still teaching all the other strategies, but we're giving them one extra thing with that tool of reflex protect.

[00:06:43] What's so special about it?

[00:06:46] Well, Tom, you're familiar with pepper spray.

[00:06:48] Yeah. You know, when you and I did the brutal self-defense class together, we showed people how to deploy it and the pros and cons of it and everything. So so what's what's different?

[00:06:58] You know, the big con was if you sprayed inside, it clears the room.

[00:07:02] Right. Exactly. And, you know, we'd kind of noticed that the floor got really slippery as well.

[00:07:09] With reflex protect Presidio Gel. It uses a CS base. It's a gel. It sticks on the person you shoot and it is not atomize and go everywhere. You can have a crowd of people spray the guy right in the middle. He would go down in pain and everybody else would be fine.

[00:07:30] So this is a pinpoint spray.

[00:07:32] It is. It goes out sort of like wasp spray. In that direct, 15, 20 feet straight spray.

[00:07:39] Yeah. So it works inside or outside.

[00:07:43] Yeah. It was developed for it was developed for hospitals first because of the huge workplace violence problem, you know, across the nation with nurses getting beat up and such. And they had to have something that would not cross contaminate the place. And so we've had rooms full of people spray one person, a person drops to their knees in pain and everybody else in the room is fine.

[00:08:06] That's amazing. That's. Yes. Crazy. Amazing. Yeah. I could imagine being there with oxygen on and my death bed. Somebody spraying pepper spray.

[00:08:18] And we made a decontaminate is patent pending where we can reverse the effects of that within two to three minutes.

[00:08:27] Well, you know what? If it was a real situation, I'd say, you know what? I just can't find that that the decontaminate right now.

[00:08:34] And if it's a bad guy and you want to let him lay there in pain, great. Hospitals, they're like, well, regardless if he was a patient or not, he's gonna become a patient. And that decontaminate was very important for the hospitals and schools want it too because what happens if somebody gets a hold of it and an innocent kid is sprayed or something, they can stop that really quick.

[00:08:56] So is it is that in the form of a pad or something that you wipe off the gel.

[00:09:02] It's a liquid. And so it's you either put it on and we have an aerosol version or just a bottle. You spray it on or you put some on a towel and you start blotting.

[00:09:12] Oh, yeah. So you don't rub.

[00:09:14] You don't rub, you just blot. Actually, the chemists describe it where there's. It goes in there and actually breaks down the C.S. crystals and stuff and neutralizes the product. And two to three minutes after its use. People are saying, oh, I can see, my eyes are fine.

[00:09:33] Wow. That's amazing. Because, you know, you see all these videos with the pepper spray where people are like gagging for a half an hour and put milk on her face. Everything.

[00:09:43] Exactly. And every police officer that we have sprayed says that this gel works faster than pepper spray and that that decontaminate is amazing because of how quickly it stops the pain.

[00:09:56] Well, yeah. And then, like I said, the collateral damage thing is, is and even if the wind is blowing, you know, you got you got you can get it on yourself, you know, with pepper spray. Especially if you're using the fog, like like I teach so so.

[00:10:13] And pepper spray still has a place. But this stuff, I think we'll replace it because it's just it is better because of that non cross contamination. Yeah. Now if you're out in the woods with a bear, I want that big fog.

[00:10:27] Right. Right. Right. Exactly.

[00:10:29] With a person where if you you know, I you know this stream and just splatter his face and it's great stuff because nobody else affected.

[00:10:37] Yeah. Yeah. And we taught, you know, we taught making a use in the fog with pepper spray and make it like a wall between you and the bad guy. But but again, if you're surrounded by civilians or good people, you can just cause a lot of havoc.

[00:10:52] So, you know, especially inside, I mean, you you know, you hospitals. They said, you know, we can't use pepper spray in here. We'd have to close the E.R. or whatever. You can't use pepper spray in a classroom with all that, you know, little kids and then every little kid is having a problem. So this provides people away a non-lethal way to stop a bad guy and not contaminate anybody else in the room.

[00:11:17] Has it been tried on animals?

[00:11:20] We have one report. I mean, we're not going to test it on animals obviously. We did have one lady tell one of our people that she sprayed a dog that came at her and the dog ran away.

[00:11:32] Yeah. OK. Well, it's not enough testing to say for sure.

[00:11:35] Yeah. So, I mean, we're not selling it for animals. We have had that one story that a lady said. It did stop a dog that was coming at her.

[00:11:43] Ok. So let's take you back a little bit. This is the vetrepreneur month. And I said I specifically wanted to have you back as the opening of this this month. We've got a lot of great vetrepreneurs coming the rest of the month. But tell everybody about your your background. And now some of it is outside of the military, like your your hapkido credentials. You're 5th dan legitimately. Because there's a lot of crazies in that field of martial arts that, you know, make up their own.

[00:12:18] I mean, you know, rank is just as is if you believe in the instructor that gave it to you. It means something to you doesn't mean a whole lot to anyone else because there's no one standard. And, you know, it's important to me because my instructors in Korea have promoted me from first, second, third, fourth, fifth. And when they give me six, you know, I'll be honored to get that from them.

[00:12:40] Yeah. That's great. So you were I were a remember your credentials as Army sniper instructor that could sneak up on anybody and tell them about your background in the service.

[00:12:53] You know, I went I went in in the 80s. I went through basic training in jump school. And I spent a couple years with the 82nd airborne division. And as my friends say, I was jumping out of perfectly good airplanes. I had to tell them there's no such thing as a perfectly good airplane. But, you know, I did that for a couple years. Then I was transferred over to the Second Infantry Division in South Korea back in 88.

[00:13:18] Is that where you met your wife.

[00:13:21] No, actually, I met her later when I was living in Korea to learn HopKido. Yeah, but when I was there in 88, I went to the second Scout Sniper School. I graduated second in my class and then later I went back as an assistant instructor at that school special duty for a number of class cycles.

[00:13:41] Weren't you an MP for a while too.

[00:13:44] No, I ran from those guys.

[00:13:45] Oh, okay. Oh, that's right. You're telling me the story about the guy hitting your truck. He had to get out of there before MPs found you.

[00:13:55] As I said, I wish to say that I stayed in shape because I had to be in better shape than the bad guys. If we went to war, but also to be in better shape than the MPs.

[00:14:08] Okay. So. So, yeah, I remember that story. But you had to pass a test then the what they called stalking.

[00:14:18] You had to pass a number of things to graduate as a sniper and the stalking phase was the phase that knocked most people out. If you passed the shooting phase and you failed one of the others, you would graduate as an advanced marksman. If you if you passed everything, you would graduate as a sniper. And most of the ones that graduated advanced marksman was because of the stalking, because it was difficult. You had to be able to sneak up and be able to pull off shots. And without getting caught by this instructors that were sitting there watching the field with binoculars and looking for you.

[00:14:59] Yeah. I never understood the part where the guy down range is standing there like pointing. What's that all about?

[00:15:07] Well, you know, you would have instructors watching from, you know, with their targets, but then you would have what we called the walkers out there walking around because instructors had radios. And so if I'm an instructor sitting on the jeep and boom, one of the students fired and they fired blanks at us. And I would tell that Walker hey, go close to that student. And then when the walker would say, hey, I'm standing with so far, I would be looking really close in that area. And then he would say.

[00:15:39] I mean, does the walker actually see you or not.

[00:15:42] Yeah. The walkers out there they'll see you. We didn't when we went. Like when I was a walker I wouldn't give the students away. I would just stand there and say I'd tell the guy, you know, because we've given him a fair shot. But then they had to do a second shot. Well, and that's when the instructors are sort of looking at him, close.

[00:15:59] And they got a spotting scope.

[00:16:03] Yeah. They pull that off without getting seen. And then the instructor would hold up a number and the walker would say, hey, what number do you see. You know, we're 200 meters away from the instructor. So you know the walkers are talking with it with the student just doing so. Oh by not looking at I mean giving them away. I think the student would have to tell the walker, you know, he's holding up twenty three and the walker on his radio. The student says he sees twenty three. Okay. And so that's how the instructors would be able to see if the instructors see one. And that could be at the very beginning of a stock or it could be after they took their shot. You know this instructor Walker take five steps, left two steps forward. The snipers at your feet and then the walker look down and say, yeah, you saw him. Then you get so many points for doing certain things. But, you know, like if you get past the line and do your first shot, you get points. If you take your second spot without getting seen you got points. If you could read the number, you got points with a 50 points was a maximum per exercise you had to get so many points for exercises to pass that phase of the class.

[00:17:17] Now. Now didn't you know, Carlos, is that Carlos Hathcock?

[00:17:23] Yes. Yeah. Carlos and I used to communicate. You know, I I have a signed book.

[00:17:27] Tell everybody who he is.

[00:17:29] Okay. Carlos Hathcock for those who don't know him, was a famous Marine sniper, had ninety three confirmed kills in Vietnam.

[00:17:38] He was injured, very badly burned through for over half his body on saving some people during Vietnam and then later with the M.S. and the injuries. You know, we lost him early. He died when I was in law school. But, you know, I used to have talks with him on the phone, just a really great guy. And I mean, you know, I treasure that know I have a couple autograph books by him, you know He signed the books that were about him for me. You know, I've got a couple of Christmas cards from him and his wife, Jo. You know, still tucked away that I keep as well. So a good man here. The stuff he did in Vietnam is legendary. That's why they write about him.

[00:18:20] And he and he had just a bolt action Remington.

[00:18:27] He was using for most of his it was 30 aught six. Winchester, I believe, is most of his kills. And he was one of the first to actually use a 50 cal. It wasn't the new 50 cal sniper rifles, it was a 50 cal machine gun that he mounted a sniper scope on.

[00:18:46] Oh, I didn't hear about that.

[00:18:48] I think it was like twenty five hundred meters from where they had that with. It was sitting there and he actually made a kill at that range with that 50 cal with the sniper scope mounted onto it.

[00:19:01] But one one shot. So he wasn't found out. Right. But I mean twenty five meters.went.

[00:19:08] I think he walked that one in and I don't I think it did on the first round. But he was it was in a camp. You know, he lives 50 cals are huge. It was in the camp and it was not at the perimeter of the camp is where he.

[00:19:21] Oh, good. I didn't hear about that story. So. Okay. So. So you passed with flying colors there and then what?

[00:19:28] Well, then I ended up getting out of the army. Also went to college. I thought about law school, but I wasn't ready. So I went back and lived in Japan for a while and lived there for a year. Taught English came back to America and lived in Riverside, California, wrote my first book on self-defense for Paladin Press. And I was training with Mark McYoung and doing bodyguard and security work for exotic dancers down in Southern California. Then I headed back to Korea as a civilian to study HapKido and Qigong. And that's when I actually met my wife because she was a teacher teaching at the same school I taught at to pay the bills. I taught English to pay the bills well so I could train.

[00:20:16] I see. So there's you get married over.

[00:20:20] I left there to come back to America, to go to law school. And then she came over and we got married while I was in law school. Then I played lawyer for a while and just really and I I had a good job with Alps, the company that gave malpractice insurance to other attorneys. I was a claims attorney. And then I was sort of lured away by a little extra money from a law firm. And it just it just wasn't for me. After a few years there, it's just like this. This isn't for me. One of the things we did was we made we created Montana limited liability companies for folks to purchase their RVs for people that didn't live in Montana not have sales tax. And I also did a lot of transactional work. Help people with small businesses. Did mediation work. But I still it was I wanted to teach. I wanted to write. So I left the practice of law to start writing books and speaking and. Then the Aurora shooting came from, if you remember that, earlier 2012 at the Batman premiere. And people started saying, hey, Alain, you teach safety, what do you do in these? And that's when I made a commitment to start focusing on that area. And I ended up studying. I got certified through Safarilands. I could teach their course on active shooter. I studied other things and I wrote the book that I wanted to have when I was first looking into the topic. And some are calling it the best book on the topic.

[00:22:00] I've seen everything there is. You know, I'm into this up to my ears. And yeah, it is the most comprehensive book on active shooter anywhere on Earth.

[00:22:13] Survive a shooting. They're available on Amazon or surviveashooting.com.

[00:22:19] Yeah, it's better go to surviveashooting.com and get on Alain's. You got a mailing list over there, right?

[00:22:26] Well, I got a mailing list at Survive and Defend. That's where I teach a lot of safety stuff. Survive a shooting. It's just about the book in the course and active shooter stuff. Survive and defend is about anything related to safety and self-defense.

[00:22:42] Okay. Tell me about the novel that I'm going to razz you about a little bit.

[00:22:47] Well, then, you know, one of the things I wrote is I wrote a novel. You know, I just and called Lost Conscience. And essentially it's a it's about an attorney who is HapKido expert who happened to be a sniper in the army, his buddy, who is based on a real life friend of mine. And, you know, Frank, who was a truck driver, Frank was killed. And so we lost him a while back on a hang gliding accident. But the novel is is about, you know, Ben and Frank. My middle name being Ben.

[00:23:18] Oh, yeah. I didn't even know that one either. All you need is a Dodge Durango. You could drive right into the book. So for so folks I've been razzing him for years about this because I'm saying wait a minute, This book is about these guys that prosecutor. You were also a prosecutor, right.

[00:23:38] I did spend some time in the city attorney's office as a prosecutor.

[00:23:42] There's a prosecutor that goes rogue taking out child molesters, because he's a sniper. It's everything. This is actually the same as Alain except for the Dodge Durango.

[00:23:54] Yeah. And the last name, I guess. I used Ken Baker and and just as an inside Greg. Greg Baker is a friend of mine who is the head instructor of the second sniper school when I was working there as an assistant instructor. And Greg and I are still friends today. But that's where the last name came from.

[00:24:16] That's the only novel I've read in like 30 years. I'm not much of a but I couldn't put it that fit my favorite products. You know, I'm just crazy about wrist locks and stuff because I had a nightclub for a long time. And you're a nightclub owner in a rural area and you're kind of a target for people, lawsuits and everything. So I had I was always interested. You know, since I'm a little kid and controlling people without bruising. So the lock on series is. Is that some of it's too fancy for me. I'm not really cut out for it. But boy, I could put some hurt on people with within that. So how many? How many DVDs is that?

[00:24:56] I have 11 out total. And I did some with Paladin Press and some other key productions. Lock on series is five and then the restraint, control and come along techniques which has borrowed from lock on plus specific stuff just for balancing and control. You know, that's a two volume set.

[00:25:18] And you did a lot of arena control where you had to use that stuff all the time, right?

[00:25:22] Yeah. I've you know, I've worked I worked my first concert way back in the early 90s and I've done different concert security and events security for many years. And I have used you know, I have not used every technique that I've learned in Hapkido. But I've used a few of my favorites quite a few times.

[00:25:43] Yeah. Yeah. Because some stuff is like especially for me. I'm no twinkle toes. You know, I'm not going to spin around underneath somebody's butt, but just the main stuff. I mean, it's just like old Bruce Lee said, he doesn't fear a guy that knows 10000 kicks. I fear the guy who knows one and does it 10000 times. So then you you ran into this reflex protect guy and then teamed up, right?

[00:26:12] Yeah. I mean, and it's been a wonderful relationship. But just because, you know, what he did and what I would I was doing and I'm still doing, they fit so well. I mean, I'd literally just got off a plane two hours ago driving back from Arizona, where I was down there talking to two different charter school networks and about what we can do to train employees and help them with their active shooter preparedness and how reflex protect can help them be better prepared as well.

[00:26:46] Yeah, I think every company, you know, five miles from me was the Virginia Beach shooting.

[00:26:52] You knew somebody that knew him.

[00:26:56] Yeah. The guy that cleans my pond is the side hustle for him on the weekends was the city employee. And he's said goodbye. He was leaving early. That day was a Friday afternoon. I'm pretty sure he's leaving 15 minutes early. And he had known the guy for eight years. He says, okay, I see. I think it was Ron. Okay. I'll see you next week. And fifteen minutes later, the shootings happened. Yes. So while it can happen like instantly anywhere, nobody is exempt from this. And if you stick your head between your legs, their head in the sand, you know, it's just there's no reason for it when and especially when I think of those a lot of these kids that sit in there, like in a shooting gallery, just sit there and freeze and do nothing. And they're just like Virginia Tech shooting a while back, you know?

[00:27:47] So, I mean, it was so funny when you texted me about that. I was literally sitting at the computer e-mailing a big hospital in Seattle. That was we were trying to figure out the dates for me to go out there and train all of the security people at that hospital with active shooter preparedness and reflex protect because the hospital wanted both. I'm literally working with this guy the head of security in the Seattle hospital about it because he thought it was important and we need to do it soon. And then you text me and there's an active shooter right here. I mean, that's why it is sort of important that people have a plan and and get some training and be prepared because it can happen anywhere, any time.

[00:28:33] Yeah. Up up the road. I mean, not really up the road, but up up in Baltimore. They had that newspaper. I think it was that, hey, the guy the guy went and locked the exit door before he went in and started shooting from the other direction. I mean just I mean there get more diabolic all the time. But but you just can't sit there. You gotta tell him your your basic quick method of what you do.

[00:28:59] Well, you know, first of all, I teach people things they can do beforehand to maybe stop it. I mean, if there was an article this week where over 30, at least 30 active threat incidents have been stopped since. Dayton, Ohio, I mean, in schools. So, I mean, people it is if you're paying attention, if you're aware and you listen to those lessons that I teach and write about, we can prevent them in the first place.

[00:29:25] That's the first first step. Absolutely. But what it means is that kid down in Florida was reported to the FBI. I think it didn't do anything.

[00:29:32] Sadly, sadly, too many, you know, of the warnings and stuff. They're going unheeded. And, you know, stuff's happening. And when the bullets start flying, it's all that other stuff is too late. You need to do something immediately. You know, I have a triangle. And in the in my book, I talk about escape. I talk about denying access to you by barricading. And I talk attack back with reflex protect. We changed attack back to defend because it fit with the product. But it's still the same principle. You're going to stop that threat. And which when you do, it's going to be determined by your location, the location of the killer and your environment. It's not a linear equation. First you do this, then you do that. Only then do you do this. You act immediately. And what you do is determined by your location, his location and your environment.

[00:30:26] Yeah. And there's a lot of details to what side of the door should you be on and how to barricade and all the kinds of little details. We only touched a little bit on him and when we did brutal self-defense together. But just a little bit of thought ahead of time rather than just freezing. You know, can give you even a chance to survive.

[00:30:47] And it's simple stuff. You know, it opens people's eyes. You know, I had two different classes within this within this month, but one at a hospital, one at a school. I took the groups. We're going to. We're going to have a field trip to the bathroom. Let's go. And I took two ladies into the bathroom.

[00:31:05] BE careful you don't separate that out and say that in front of your wife.

[00:31:08] Yeah. Oh, no. We went to that. We didn't use the bathroom, we went to the bathroom. And I took two ladies into the bathroom and I had two of the biggest guys outside. And then I told the ladies what to do and I said, told the big guys, come on in. And the guys could not get in. Then we opened up the door and I show how the ladies were braced and they're braced against the wall. So in actuality, those guys were pushing against the wall. And the ladies, they kept those big guys out. They didn't break. It was easy for them. There was no strength involved.

[00:31:42] Yeah. It's almost like a lock on stuff. You know, it's used in leverage and stuff.

[00:31:48] So I'm teaching people and I'm opening their eyes to help them think differently so they can be better prepared when something really bad happens.

[00:31:57] Yeah. It's so important nowadays. I mean, I mean, it's a mess. They hardly report stuff anymore unless it's an AR-15 involved. That stuff. This stuff has happening everywhere. Shooting. The little girl got shot in Chicago, I think the other day in a gang.

[00:32:15] And it's not just shootings, you know. My sister last year was attacked by a homeless person. She made it into her car and the person beat on her car and dented the heck out of her car. She called the police, got a voicemail recording, left a message and was never called back. She's like, I need some that reflex protect. Yeah, really. We and I I wasn't I wasn't involved with them when this happened. And then when I got involved, I told her about it. She's like, that's what I need. Because Paul went out and bought me some pepper spray. Paul was her husband. She said I want that reflex protect. And because this stuff is going on too much.

[00:32:57] It's a crazy world out there that people have to pay attention. And tell about that one person you were telling me about that was. Didn't want to be in the class. This is why why should we do this? You just call the police, tell the famous line about the police.

[00:33:13] Well, when seconds count, the police are minutes away. And that was you know, I was in that class with a police officer in and actually that police officer retired from the police department is helping reflex protect. But he and I were at an active shooter. It was a it wasn't a class. We were talking about the class. Oh, to a bunch university people, because there were people that were resisting saying, why should we have a class like this at the university? And that was it. Students said, why should we learn this? It's your job. And, you know, Ben looked at him and said, yeah, and we're going to get there as fast as we can, but it might take a little while depending on where we are. And we want you to survive until we get there. And that's what this class is. Wow. Yeah. And that's. I'm teaching in my classes and that's what reflex protect is for. It's to fill that gap until the professionals get there to give you a better chance of surviving something terrible.

[00:34:10] Absolutely. Yes. So, yes, I'm just thrilled to death, you know, and like that from a business standpoint. You know, you were on your own for a long time and then you made a decision to team up. You know, it's an entrepreneurial podcasts. So this is another way to make it. Two people that are compatible, non-competitive. That makes sense. Team up for a bigger, greater good.

[00:34:37] Joe is the entrepreneur. Because this this is still a startup. So, I mean, it's it's lean and mean. And we teamed up because we thought, you know, being together, we could both blow this up and we could all benefit and help more people. And we're still, you know, busting our butts to grow.

[00:34:56] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I agree. I just want people to know, if you do get and decide to collaborate, you need to have good agreements. And luckily, I was an attorney already. But but, you know, it's easy to get into stuff. But getting out. If somebody dies or if you just don't get along, you just have to have everything written up good by an attorney so that you don't get stuck in. Even if somebody dies and then their family comes in and tries to run the business. Oh, my God. So, yeah, you've got to be careful about it. But it is it is a method to really expand. You know, they all two heads are better than one thing. So.

[00:35:35] So. Exactly. And yes. All right. About you want good agreement, right. And if you're ever going to team up with anybody, you want to make sure it's a good fit.

[00:35:44] You really want to vet people. But vet in a different sense, because like you said, once you get it's just a lot of hassle to get in. And it's way more to get out. Yeah. Oh, and why do how do I know this? Yeah. And a big lawsuit. They get out of the only partnership I ever was in and that in a lawsuit. So. So yeah, I learned my lesson the hard way.

[00:36:10] Exactly. And I said I used to be a part of a firm and I just I didn't like. It wasn't for me and and I was on my own for a long time because, you know, I there was nobody else I wanted to partner with. And this you know, when Joe came along with this particular product, it just sort of clicked. And it made sense for us to work together to to build something bigger than both either of us could do on our own.

[00:36:33] Exactly. And both. Yeah. Like both of you will you'll do more active shooter classes. He'll sell more reflex protect. And you'll undoubtedly save lives. Undoubtedly you'll save lives, you know, because what they learned in the class still, you know, if, you know, you and I both emphasize awareness so much. That's good. Hopefully that'll carry over to their home and they're traveling around and going to the mall and everything else.

[00:36:59] Exactly. I mean, part of my survivor's shooting classes and you saw in that book and we talked about it when we've taught together, I always included an awareness component because that is your number one.

[00:37:11] Absolutely. I mean, people tell that other thing.

[00:37:14] You say get your head, get your head out of your apps. You walk around looking at, you know, texting and reading your phone. And people have walked off of cliffs. They walked in the fountains. You know, go to YouTube. You can see the video.

[00:37:30] And you we showed that thing at class, whereas this lady is carrying a baby, looking at her cell phone and the guy looks around. He's aware. And he goes and just kicks her down, knocks her down on top of her baby and steal this to steal her cell phone because he wasn't looking around. Had she just paid attention, looked at him, probably wouldn't happen.

[00:37:51] He knew he wouldn't have exactly that. That's a real important video. And when you watch that video, you notice the criminal. He was looking around, he was aware was he didn't spot the security camera footage of him, which helped catch him later. But, you know, thankfully, the baby was OK. But, you know, that lady should have been paying attention to what's going on around her, not her phone.

[00:38:12] Yeah. And a lot of people think it just cracks me up. I mean, it doesn't crack me up. It's sad. I wish I could stop and tell the people. But I mean, I see these female joggers and walkers and they're on the phone thinking that that's going to protect them when chances are it's going to hurt them worse because they're not paying attention. Yes.

[00:38:32] Paying attention is so important. And I said enough. I think you're right. I think we will save lives and we'll save people from getting hurt. I mean, we reflex protect has already been deployed in a couple hospitals for real situations, not against shooters, but against other workplace violence. And it has kept nurses from getting beat up.

[00:38:53] Absolutely. I mean, there's irate people, friends of the person that's in. Or relatives of the people that are in an emergency room. They get out of hand. They get mad. They start screaming. I know that my protection dog company. They they're starting to deploy dogs in the ERs in some of these bad places.

[00:39:16] I mean, it's it's my you know, my wife recorded something off of TV the other day I wasn't home. It was a big news report on workplace violence in hospitals. And you're showing all these video clips of nurses and orderlies and other people getting beat up. And that's exactly what reflex protect initially was designed for. It was designed for hospitals first. And unfortunately or I guess fortunately it was has been used in hospitals and kept nurses safe. It's unfortunate that it's needed and that, you know, those that you know, that workforce needs something.

[00:39:48] The bottom line is you have to take responsibility for your own safety because the courts and the police are not because I'm just watching my big screen over on the wall. And there was a story came out today that that guy that shot Kate Steinle out in San Francisco, the charge that he did get charged with just got overturned by some liberal judge. Yeah. So he's off.

[00:40:11] I open almost every one of my active shooter things with you can't have a police officer in your back pocket. Yeah. And actually, yesterday in Arizona, I had a lady raise your hand, say yes. I said, where is he? She goes, well, he's my husband right now. You only have him in your back pocket some of the time.

[00:40:32] I don't know what this looks like. Is that a canister or what is it?

[00:40:37] It's a bigger canister. And we're actually working on a smaller version, too, because we have so many people saying they'd like a smaller version that would fit in the pocket or purse easier. Right now it's a larger can. It's sort of an institutional can. We have brackets that will mount on a wall or under a desk or inside the school bus.

[00:40:58] Oh, okay. So this is not a purse carry thing?

[00:41:01] No, I mean, we do have a holster because we have different security and different custodians and different people that do carry it on their belt. But it is sort of large. So we are working on a smaller, smaller size that will have as well.

[00:41:15] Okay, great. So anyway, tell him how they get a hold of you. They'd like to book one of these classes or check out your books and your DVD series and all that stuff. What's the best Web sites to go to?

[00:41:27] You know, the two I mentioned before, I mean, if you want to survive a shooting book, get an autographed copy, go to surviveashooting.com if you want to. There's a link to the Amazon if you want Kindle there, too, but you can get signed copies surviveashooting.com. My safety newsletter and self-defense newsletter surviveanddefend.com. And if you want to know more about this revolutionary new spray, go to reflexprotect.com. And I can be contacted at any of those Web sites.

[00:41:55] And for those of you list, could you tell that that Alain's a girl? So I thought he was a girl for a couple years because he's got a French spelling to his name. It's ALAIN and so I met him through online stuff on my e-mail newsletter for years, I thought it was the girl.

[00:42:33] I just go by Alain. Jean-Claude Van Damme has had two different movies where he played characters with that name and nobody mistakes him for a woman usually.

[00:42:47] Ok, we've got to take a quick sponsor break. And since this is vetrepreneurs month, I want to tell you a little bit more about how my school supports military families and how our training can help them. First of all, we give a 50 percent or that turns out the ninety five hundred dollar scholarship just to thank them for their service. This applies to active duty folks or veterans. Then for eligible military spouses, the Department of Defense gives them an additional 4000. The reason this is perfect for military families and I know this firsthand living in Virginia Beach, where we have probably the biggest collection of military in the world. I mean, spouses around here normally have to take crappy jobs at lower than average pay because employers know that they're going to get deployed. Employers don't want to invest a lot of money in people they know will be leaving and then the spouse has to get deployed and find another crappy job in their new location. This sucks mean with internet marketing training companies don't care where you live. You can work legitimately from home, and if you get deployed somewhere else, it doesn't matter. You can still be handling social media, email marketing, shopping cart stuff, customer service and all the other things. Every business on earth needs. And not only that, you can study at home with no expenses for books, travel or childcare anytime, day or night. It's a perfect fit for military families. And one more thing. You can also sell your own products and services with the same skills you learn at our school. So check it all out at IMTCVA.org/military. IMTCVA that stands for Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia. But just because it's in Virginia, remember anywhere in the world you can get an Internet connection, you can study and get the skills you need to have a portable skill set that you can take with you around the world. And I'll be thrilled to support you all the way. So check out everything in the show notes at screwthecommute.com/176. That's this episode. Or you can go directly to the website IMTCVA.org/military. Oh, and one more thing. You know, we love our military, but we also love our law enforcement and first responders so they get the same deal. Now, the Department of Defense doesn't have the scholarship for them, but we certainly give the ninety five hundred dollar scholarship to law enforcement and first responders.

[00:45:40] All right. Let's get back to the main event. Well, gee, thanks so much for business and kicking off ventrepreneur month for us. I don't want to be cliche about it because, you know, you and I go way back. But thanks for your service. You know, doing all the things that you veterans have done to keep us safe is appreciated for sure.

[00:46:00] I appreciate that Tom. And I want to do a shout out to all the veterans, to all my fellow brothers and sisters and served in any of the armed forces. Thank you for what you what you've done if you served. And thank you for what you're doing. If you're serving now.

[00:46:14] All right. Sounds good. So everybody check back in. We've got a lot more great vetrepreneurs coming on this month. And of course, on Mondays, I just do my in-depth training sessions on something that's either made me a lot of money or saved me a lot of money on Wednesdays and Fridays. I'll be doing these interviews with great vetrepreneurs. And and one of the ones that kind of helped inspire this vetrepreneur month be a special Patriot edition on September 11th, which is though Wednesday will be Steven Kuhn, the leader of the ventrepreneur Tribe. It's about thirteen thousand five hundred veterans on Facebook. And so he's kind of what inspired this this whole month to be vetrepreneur month. So watch for him on September 11th. Special Patriot edition. All right. Catch y'all later.

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