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High-stress jobs, such as those in the military or law enforcement fields, tend to attract mission-oriented people, dedicated to the team and the public, who thrive on stress. Well, plants thrive on water, too, but you can still wind up drowning them with too much of it. In today’s episode, Jim and Mike look at job-related burnout, its negative effects on the team, and how to mitigate or avoid it.   In any tight-knit organization, attitudes are contagious, and that goes double for lousy ones. It’s common for the word of hard-chargers attracted to “tactical” work to brag about the amount of time they put in, for example, the number of hours worked, and treat it as a benchmark. But the more the workload piles up, the more easily frustrated you get, and that can feed the bad attitude spiral. Listen in as we talk about ways to reduce work-related fatigue and maintain a healthy work/life balance…tactically.   Find us on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube) @TacTangents You can join the conversation in our Facebook Discussion Group. Find all of our episodes, articles, some reading list ideas, and more on our website www.tacticaltangents.com   Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe. 

Part of our mission here at Tactical Tangents is to overcome the “tactical fantasy”, and in this episode, Mike and Jim talk about avoiding one of the most pernicious ones. It’s easy in a world full of tacticool training classes to get focused on the sort of threats to ourselves and loved ones that jump out of the bushes and can be thwarted with kinetic skills when the truth is you probably already know the person you’re most likely to have to pepper spray. The statistical fact of the matter is that most victimization comes from people who look like us and are already in our social circles. That’s extra true about sex crimes, and super extra true about sex crimes against children. Tune in as we discuss teaching ourselves, loved ones, and especially our kids about understanding social norms, establishing boundaries, and the importance of informing someone in authority.   Links: The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker Protecting the Gift by Gavin de Becker Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN): Grooming: Know the Warning Signs McMartin Pre-School Trial They Must Be Monsters: A Modern-Day Witch Hunt     Find us on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube) @TacTangents You can join the conversation in our Facebook Discussion Group. Find all of our episodes, articles, some reading list ideas, and more on our website www.tacticaltangents.com   Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may be over (for now) but that doesn’t leave us in a world without conflict. While we were hip-deep in the Global War on Terror, major great power competitors have been nursing grievances and feeling rising ambitions and opportunities. In this episode, Jim takes a detailed look at the state of play with respect to Russia and China, and how that could affect the US as a nation, and us as individual citizens.   While neither of our great power opponents would benefit from a shooting war with the United States at this point in time, Jim points out that they are both conducting war by other means; the struggles are already underway. Whether by economic means, attempts to control raw material sources, or meddling with public opinion via social media channels, it’s important to be aware of these methods. Listen to this episode to have it all laid out.   Links: War Without Rules by Robert Spalding War with Russia by Sr Richard Shirreff US National Security Strategy   Find us on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube) @TacTangents You can join the conversation in our Facebook Discussion Group. Find all of our episodes, articles, some reading list ideas, and more on our website www.tacticaltangents.com   Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com

In both the military and law enforcement universes, there’s often an understandable amount of friction between the people out where the action is and those who help them get there and support them in their work. In this episode, Jim and Mike discuss ways to smooth cooperation between the people behind the scenes and the officer on the street or the pilot in the seat. When you really think about it, everybody’s supporting somebody and nobody’s completing the mission alone. Learning to distinguish between your “boss” and your “customer” can help you focus on operational success whether you’re the one calling in the air support, flying the plane, or keeping the plane flyable. As the saying goes, the chicken is involved in breakfast while the pig is committed…but breakfast ain’t happening without both doing their jobs. Links: Randy Pausch Achieving Childhood Dreams   Find us on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube) @TacTangents You can join the conversation in our Facebook Discussion Group. Find all of our episodes, articles, some reading list ideas, and more on our website www.tacticaltangents.com   Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com  

In a cool tactical podcast, everybody wants to talk about a gunfight and nobody wants to talk about getting t-boned in an intersection on the way to the gunfight. This episode features Mike & Jim, who’ve bent enough fenders between them to have some advice to offer, talking about the realities of driving. Whether you’re driving the government’s vehicle or your own private citizen chariot, realistic Operational Risk Management applies behind the wheel too.    Not only does viewing driving from an Operational Risk Management standpoint apply to doing the high-speed stuff while sawing at the wheel to keep it between the ditches while running code, it entails a lot more aspects. How do you manage your driving to take into account the possibility of road rage from other motorists? Do you stay on top of vehicle maintenance in order to keep from getting stranded in a desert or a blizzard…or stuck on the side of the road and having to deal with whatever sketchy weirdo stops to “help”? Listen in as these topics and more are covered.     Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com

The only thing more frightening than being shot at by your own team is finding out you just shot up your own team. The very idea of fratricide…aka “Blue-on-Blue” incidents…is scary, but being a professional means you can’t just be scared, you have to work on your skills and knowledge to counter the possibility of it happening to you or because of you. In this episode, Jim and Mike discuss just that. Whether it’s a pair of USAF F-15’s mistaking American Blackhawks for Iraqi Hind gunships, a police officer not briefed to look for the undercover cop at the buy/bust, or a private citizen failing to positively identify an “intruder” and shooting a loved one, these are all preventable failures. We know that fog and friction make it harder to be aware of the environment and cause simple tasks to become more difficult, so how do we mitigate these factors and prevent “own goals”? Listen to this episode to find out.     Links: Reading: A Chain of Events by Joan Piper Vignettes: Tarnak Farm Incident Albuquerque undercover officer shot by LT:   Police 1 Article -  Update on Officer -  YouTube Video NYPD Incident  Providence Training Fatality Robin Sage Training Fatality    Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com

Offices come in a variety of shapes and guises, from a room with desks and whiteboards to the front seat of a squad car. In this solo episode, Jim sounds off on his favorite topic: Management is not a dirty word, to be shunned in favor of “leadership”. Rather, management is part of leadership. It’s the art & science of allocating and coordinating resources to meet a goal.     Jim wants to share with you several of the lessons on management he’s learned the hard way, such as when it’s time to lead less. If you’ve managed your team well, you can take some time you’d otherwise have to spend motivating them and instead spend it removing obstacles preventing your highly-motivated people from solving problems efficiently. After all, getting the right people in the right places with the right equipment and a realistic timeline is essential to leadership. Links: Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule   Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com

Sometimes bad training passes down information that might once have been good, but garbles it. Take “Shooting to Stop the Threat”…please. This episode sees Mike and Jim discuss the nuances of using lethal force to reasonably end the capacity of an assailant to harm you. What exactly is incapacitation? What’s the difference between “shoot to kill” and to “stop”? Is intent magical? Listen to find out.  Incapacitating a threat by means of lethal force requires certain factors to be met in order to be considered reasonable, and it’s not a blank check. In the laws of war, there’s a difference between sailors boarding a small boat from a sinking ship because they’re out of the fight and marines climbing into small landing craft to get into the fight. In civilian self defense, each shot needs to be defensible, and that means reasonably explainable.   Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com

For a person in a first responder line of work, being caught with an inadequate skill toolset in a critical incident can lead to the sort of feelings of helplessness that are a greased rail to PTSD-land. In this short episode, Mike talks through some ways to preemptively head off those bad feelings with good preparation.  Unlike the fixed mindset in which you’re dropped onto the planet as either Someone Who Can or Someone Who Can’t based on some immutable set of skills, a growth mindset is one in which you see yourself as an active participant, learning from each experience to better deal with the next one. Mike explains why one of these is not only better for dealing with the incident, but also dealing with the aftermath. Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com

In a short episode inspired by a listener question, Mike dives into the art of noticing abnormalities. An EMT instructs his trainees to put every patient on the EKG, whether the complaint is cardiac related or not. Why? So that the trainee will develop a baseline of what normal cardiac activity looks like and will be able to spot the abnormal more easily in the future.  Humans are excellent at pattern recognition…if they’ve gathered enough data to establish a baseline. Whether it’s noticing an abnormal heart rhythm, an unusual response to a squad car parked at an interdiction checkpoint, or the activity leading up to an ambush in some far-off deployment, being aware of what’s normal and what’s not can be a crucial skill. Link: Left of Bang by Patrick Van Horne Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com

What is a professional? The dictionary says, at its simplest, that it’s someone paid to perform a task, as opposed to an amateur. But there’s more to it than a paycheck. In this episode, Jim and Mike examine the characteristics of what we know as professionalism, and how they apply in the world of the tactical…well, professions. Professionals don’t choke when the chips are down.     There's a high expectation of professionalism in the military and law enforcement worlds, but what does that mean? It’s easy to mistake the basics of bearing and rule-following as learned in early training for professionalism, but Mike and Jim point out that the professional is trusted to understand the situation well enough to take ownership of it, and the competence and expertise to make the hard decisions. Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com

Can you weaponize a positive mental outlook? In this short episode, Jim talks about positivity and optimism and how they can be cultivated and employed by leaders. When your job is basically to foresee and plan for worst-case scenarios, this can be a factor that is easy to overlook. Optimism can go beyond simplistic hooah moto slogans!    Positivity isn’t magic. You can’t optimism your way through a situation you aren’t ready for any more than you can mindset your way through a fight. Productive positivity, however, is never allowing yourself to say “this sucks” without adding “…and this is how I’m going to fix it.” Listen in as Jim offers his thoughts on a practical positive attitude.   Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com

In this short episode, Jim talks about the benefits he finds in taking the time to get outdoors. If you’re listening to these podcasts, you’re probably a pretty outdoorsy person, but take the time to think of the benefits of outdoor recreation: Exercise, a chance to unwind the mind from the job, and yes, even just getting into the sunshine and absorbing some of that Vitamin D love from above.    While “self care” is a term with a bit of a woo-woo feel to it, it’s necessary for people in high stress jobs to take time to depressurize, and getting out in nature is a great way to do it. Jim takes the time on deployments to plan his hikes for when he gets home; what’s your outdoor stress release? Links: The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com

While gear is expensive and important, humans are even more so. When you’ve found the people with the right aptitudes and trained them with the right skills, how do you keep them achieving up to their capabilities? Mike and Jim discuss thishugely important part of the leadership role. Talent management is more than just a buzzword, it’s a skill!P Picking the human talent for your team and carefully developing them once they’re selected is a core element of leadership, and “management” is not a dirty word. Knowing the traits you need and attracting people with those traits is a foundational skill for any team leader. Keeping those people there and motivated is where the management comes in. Links: Moneyball by Michael Lewis The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com

For the first episode of the New Year, Mike and Jim tap one of the podcast’s most important resources: You, the listeners! We asked the members of the Tactical Tangents Facebook Discussion Group for a list of questions, with the promise of podcast swag for the best one. (If you’re not in the group, get in there and join!) What’s the best training for unsworn personnel to seek out to best enhance their safety on the job? How do you deal, as a leader, with that difficult team member who’s hard to motivate? These topics and many more get bandied about by Jim and Mike, using their experiences in the world outside the PowerPoint presentation. Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com

The A-Team couldn’t have pulled off a caper with four B.A. Baracuses , U2 never would have been a hit with four Bonos, and nine Legolases couldn’t have gotten the One Ring to Mordor. Putting together a good team is about more than just a mix of skills, though, and in this episode Jim and Mike talk about balancing personality types to build a team of winners. Some people are daring and some are risk-averse. There are process people and results people. For every rebel, there’s an i-dotting, t-crossing rules follower. All these personality types can bring something to a team; this kind of diversity really is strength! Selecting opposites that compliment each other is a valuable leadership skill. Most important is the self-awareness of what you bring to your team, and who can back you up in your blind spot. Links: Warnings Unheeded by Andy Brown   Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com

In this episode, Mike sits down for a discussion with Ross Hick. In addition to his career supervising violent felons as a Probation Surveillance Officer, Ross works as a trainer with Citizens Defense Research. One of his specialties is the psychology of critical incidents. There’s a lot of material out there on preparing for the fight, but Ross and Mike go on a deep dive about preparing for the aftermath.  Tactical skills and physical fitness can help survive the fight, but what about emotional fitness after the fight is over? In addition to common symptoms like sleep disruption and reliving the incident, high responders may find themselves in the uncomfortable position of feeling isolated and out of control afterward. In this episode Ross & Mike talk about therapy resources, the importance of finding meaning outside the job, and preventative care ahead of time for mental resilience in the wake of a critical incident. Links: Citizen Defense Research Sources of Power By Gary Klein The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com

Nobody wants to put on a show that’s all war stories. It sounds like you’re trying to fluff your resume and can bore others who’ve also been there and done that. Plus you don’t want to talk out of school. At the same time, there’s a lot of hard-won institutional knowledge that can come from those stories, especially the ones where Jim almost died. In this episode, Mike and Jim relax and let Jim share some of the lessons he’s learned from scaring himself half to death.  Hard landings, cockpit equipment malfunctions, fires, and near-miss almost midair collisions while in an inverted spin, these situations that were terrifying at the time can be humorous in retrospect as long as everyone lived. More importantly, they all offer the sort of lessons that can’t be learned from a PowerPoint presentation, only by things going badly wrong in real time. Jim’s here to pass his hard won lessons on to you. And watch out for pterodactyls! Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com

For all its chaos, the stereotypical active shooter situation is fairly straightforward: There’s a bad guy killing people, and the good guys need to close with him and stop him as quickly as possible. The events of November 2008 in the Indian city of Mumbai, however, showed us another, complex, kind of active shooter event and Mike takes a look at the takeaways from those fateful days. The Mumbai incident, perpetrated by a squad of ten terrorists who had been through a rigorous selection and training process, introduced multiple novel problems worth considering. What happens when there are multiple shooters at different scenes simultaneously? When they have access to serious arms, including grenades, possibly provided by a foreign actor? When they use structure fires as a weapon? When they have outside command-and-control monitoring the news and communicating with the shooters via cell phone? These and other complications inherent in an attack like this are examined in this episode.   Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com

There are people who believe that inserting the police in a situation makes things worse. Are they right? In this solo episode from Mike, he looks at the perils of the “fear biter” and the negative effects of an unmanaged fight or flight response on decision making skills. Stress management is important, and it can’t be learned in a PowerPoint class. The most notorious manifestation of this phenomenon is the “’Oh Sh*t!’ Bang”, where a scared or startled cop results in a lawful-but-awful shooting that might have been avoided by better stress management and more confidence in the officer’s physical skills. However, Mike also explains the many other places that the poorly managed limbic response can rear its ugly head: Bad communication in stressful situations, indecision or half-decisions that allow a developing situation to get much worse, and more.   Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe.  Intro music credit Bensound.com