Tactical Living

[Intro]

911, what's the nature of your emergency…

Ashlie: Welcome back to another episode of Tactical Living by LEO Warriors. I'm your host, Ashlie Walton.

Clint: And I'm your co-host Clint Walton.

Ashlie: In today's episode, we're going to talk about something that's quite uncomfortable for some people and quite empowering for others and that is the second presidential executive order which is enhancing public safety in the interior of the United States. So for today's episode just sit back, relax and enjoy today's content.

Clint and I try very diligently not to watch the news nowadays. I think what happened was, since the earthquake on the Fourth of July and the fifth of July, we keep just popping on there to see if there's any kind of new updates on anything as it pertains to earthquakes because I'm deathly afraid of them. And in doing that we can't help but see so many protests that are happening and we live close to the Los Angeles area. So it's big news in southern California. And I want to take a step back, because I understand how people are getting upset because of the way that the immigrants are being detained. I also do not believe that that is the way to go about it.

They are literally being kept in cages that are far more condensed than even jail cells. Regardless, I do believe that they are committing crimes and they should be held in some kind of captivity that is very comparable to prison. In the meantime until everything is sorted out. However, those types of conditions are not something that we would even hold our own prisoners in. So that's one thing. I completely understand that and I don't think that it's right. What are your thoughts?

Clint: Yeah. It's, I think the environment and the system's broken when it comes to the detention of illegal immigrants. They are kept in subpar situations that you know adults nor children should be kept in. That needs to be reformed definitely.

Ashlie: In saying that, this is the first time that something like this has happened in our history.

Clint: Yeah. And actually this has been going on for decades it's just never been brought to light.

Ashlie: Yeah, and so the reason I felt that it was so important to talk about this is because I feel that the media is really misconstruing the exact reason for this presidential order. It was actually put forth back in 2017 and it's so easy for us to just flip on the news and think what's going on our screen is all that's happening. But there's a reality behind the scenes. And so I have this executive order (it's the second one actually), pulled up right now on my computer and I just want to touch on some of these points to hopefully shed some awareness on the reality and the reasons why this executive order is so important and why there's a crackdown that's happening under our current president's placement.

So in section 1, it says that "the purpose is for interior enforcement of our nation's immigration laws critically important to the nation's security and public safety of the united states." Now, as a police officer Clint, talk to us a little bit about how you see this playing out in real life on your day to day.

Clint: It hasn't really changed a single thing for me.

Ashlie: No, i want go into how you see our nation's security being jeopardized by having illegal immigrants here and more importantly how this executive order is not targeting, you know somebody selling corn from a cart on the corner of the street.

Clint: The orders in place to effectively allow the deportation of these criminals who are violating our laws in a more severe way. I mean, put yourself in the victim's shoes if your house was broken into and your property was taken by someone who is an illegal immigrant. And I do understand that our own citizens do the same thing. But if you could completely avoid that situation by not having that person here in the first place, wouldn't you?

Ashlie: For sure and we can dive deeper into the types of crimes that are statistically being showcased as to the reason why we cannot allow them in our country... Which are far more really vile than just somebody committing robbery.

Clint: Yeah and that ranges from murder to rape to manslaughter. The list goes on and on…and looking at that, most of the sweeps that are going on right now, they're targeting more of these violent offenders and they're targeting the families so to speak, because people have protested them separating the families as well. So you remove the parents and the kids are okay to stay, even though this person committed some heinous crime, but they don't want to separate the family. So they had to deport everyone. And I understand, you know, there are going to be people who didn't do anything wrong getting deported based off the point of they want to stay together as a family.

Ashlie: And it's sad. It's sad that that's the reality. And how separation of family is happening and me actually coming from a family of immigrants. My dad came over here from Canada illegally upwards of 45-50 years ago. But immediately did it the right way. So I couldn't imagine having my family torn apart because my dad decided that when he got here he was just going to, you know, not abide by the laws… and I mean, his plan was to just come here and then pave the path for doing it the right way and following the laws, which is exactly what he did. But for most of these families, I mean name an excuse. It takes too long. They don't want to go through the process. They're worried that they're going to get deported sooner than later. I get that. But ultimately, that fault would have lied on my dad's shoulders and not the president's. Not the state's. Not the federal government. Knowing what I know now, I would have blamed that on my father.

Clint: That's an excellent point. People need to point the finger at somebody but instead of pointing the finger at the person who actually committed the crime or who's committing the unlawful acts.

Ashlie: They're pointing it at the people who are taking it all away. Not the person who instigated it in the first place.

Clint: And that's where it gets so muddy and that's why we do have such a divide in our country right now.

Ashlie: For sure…and going on here to the second section of this executive order. It says on here, "to ensure the faithful execution of the immigration laws in the United States, including the INA against all removable aliens. Consistent with Article 2 Section 3 of the United States constitution and Sections 3331 of Title 5 United States code." So we can go on and we can read this and read this. But what it also talks about here is the "enforcement of the immigration laws in the interior of United States. In furtherance of the policy described in Section 2 of this order, I hereby direct agencies to employ all lawful means to ensure the faithful execution of the immigration laws of the United States against all removable aliens."

Clint: So with that being said, how would you as an individual feel if someone (and we'll use the previous example), broke into your house, took everything and then they say, 'well, we don't want to separate this person from their family, so we're not going to send them to jail. We're not going to hold them accountable for the law that they just broke.'

Ashlie: It starts to create this divide among Americans, in my opinion. Because it starts to make me question where do my own rights and laws stand if they're not equivalent to people that are in this country illegally. That's not fair. I'm not okay with that as an American. As an American who has supported my country from the moment that I knew how to.

Clint: And that's exactly right. It's, where is that line that's drawn in the sand to say, either it's a violation of someone who is breaking the laws/rights or a violation of someone who's not breaking the law and doing everything the right ways rights.

Ashlie: Absolutely. And just thinking on this further, I believe it's still important for us to, regardless of what side of this you sit on, there's no gray area. You are either for it or against it. I think that it's still important for us to understand the level of empathy that's required in order to move through this situation and I don't want to say move past it, because I do not believe that this country should move past it. I think that what the president has put forward has really shed some light on the vulnerability and the holes that are created along our border that make it so easy for the drug smugglers to come in, the rapist to come in, the human trafficking to happen…and somebody has finally taken a stance and said okay we need to have some security to where we define ourselves as American to a point to where we say, we're American and you're not and this is what makes our country different. Not having these free open borders to where there is no divide in our country. Our country has to be divided from other countries, otherwise it doesn't make us a country.

Clint: That's exactly right. We are a country of freedoms that we have to protect the citizens who are already here.

Ashlie: And in having that level of empathy and understanding of what these families are going through, these families of immigrants… I mean if I had it my way, every immigrant that we know of… we should fully screen them all and the ones that do not have any kind of criminal backgrounds or even might should be interviewed and sent back to where they came from and then have the opportunity to come back but do it the right way if they don't. It's not like you're leaving and you can never come back. I don't think people understand that. They're not saying you're never allowed in the United States of America. They're saying you came here the wrong way. Please go back to the country that you came from. And we still have that door to freedom, but the door is locked. And you have to wait until you're given the key to be granted permission. Just like us as Americans would need that same permission in order to access living in any other country in the world.

Clint: And in our travels we've seen this. And this isn't just an American problem. This is a worldwide problem. Every country has immigration issues and every country has their own approaches. People look at us that we're such tyrants and how we're approaching this. But in our travels, we've seen how we're actually very liberal and how we do approach it. Where other countries they just load them up in a truck and send them back over, whether it's in a war-torn country or not.

Ashlie: They are zero tolerance… and I mean we've been fortunate enough to travel to enough countries to where we've paid witness to that. And I think in really moving forward I want to point out how we started this conversation with the fact that turning on the news and being showcased information that isn't fully exclusive and it's not executing exactly what's going on behind the scenes. I believe that's what's starting to create this hatred and us believing that we have to choose a side and that's not really having the ability to showcase that empathy, because the media is saying, okay well you people who believe in this and you people who support this or support your president, look at what you're doing. You're putting these people in cages. Well, I don't feel that way. I feel that the process (regardless of what it is) starts somewhere. And unfortunately, this is just the reality of where this process is starting until more agencies get employed and more locations get created in order to disperse these people. And we took such massive action in such a short amount of time that this is what has created, this influx of these immigrants being held in these facilities that can't maintain them all. And having these sweeps like this, I think and I hope, is just the start of the process of being able to move things forward to where we're not keeping these human beings stuck in these cages the way that we are.

Clint: In absolutely streamlining the process to obtain citizenship or work visas or the legal way of getting here to where it's not taking years and years and years to where someone can do it in a reasonable amount of time.

Ashlie: Exactly. And if their families stay here, then they can choose they come back here to their families in a reasonable amount of time. But it goes back to doing it the right way. And I think, I wish the media would showcase the fact that we're not closing our doors on these people. We're just saying, please go back to go and start the game the right way. Because we want to make you safer too. If you want to come here to our country, we want to make sure Americans are safe. But we want to make sure you're safe too. And as you sit there, it's just my hope that you can find that level of empathy to understand that the way that this process is being carried out, anybody with any kind of humanity would understand that it's not okay. It's not okay the way that it's happening. But that there is a process and a reason as to why this is happening this way, and it's okay to have your own thoughts and opinions and beliefs, but to also showcase exactly what the reality is behind something such as our immigration reform. This is a brand new wave that the president is creating, and people really need to take a step back and educate themselves on the facts. I mean, the president asks you to fact check all of the time, and by doing that, and having an understanding of what's really going on based on your own knowledge and not a freakin headline, then you're really able to enjoy your Tactical Living.

[Intro]

911, what’s the nature of your emergency? 

Ashlie: Welcome back to another episode of tactical living by Leo warriors. I'm your host Ashlie Walton. 

Clint: And I’m your cohost Clint Walton. 

Ashlie: And for today's episode I want to talk about how important it is for the health of a first responder to be in alignment with their career choice. So just sit back, relax and enjoy today's content. Now Clint I am going to pick at you a little bit. 

Clint: Dang it.

Ashlie: I want to just have this journey where we can reflect on this time last year versus where you're at today in terms of your physical health and how that pertains to your line of work.

Clint: You know this on last year I weighed two hundred and eighty-three pounds and over this journey where I’ve really, I had an epiphany almost of changing my outlook on food. I didn't do any of the fat diets. I really darted to eat things that gave me nutrition instead of eating processed foods and everything all the time and when I had that epiphany and made it so easy for me just to lose the weight and stop eating the junk food that's out there and through that it's increased my energy levels. It's you know made me feel better about myself and tying that into you know law enforcement, a lot of times you know I got an ideal suspects and they look at you like man I could run away from this guy and he would never catch me. 

Ashlie: Can we dive into that a little bit. And can you maybe think about some things that were actually difficult for you to do being overweight that you identify now that really held you back in your career, 

Clint: You know being overweight is not fun. But it was comfortable for me at the time. In going into my day to day job you know I had to get bigger uniforms. I had an appearance where I felt I didn't look as professional as I wanted to. It was one of those things where I just didn't feel like I could, if someone did run for me, I felt like I couldn't catch them. So I didn't let that happen. But in those instances that we all have where they decide to run or they decide to fight, my endurance just wouldn't have been there. And that led to a safety issue for me. And that's not even what gave me the motivation to want to change my outlook on food or to really start bringing in physical fitness into my life as a regular practice. It was just my own feelings about myself. 

Ashlie: So can you talk about those moments of the possibility of inflicting maybe a lack of safety on yourself as an officer because of being overweight, not in shape and not having that endurance. Like put yourself in the worst-case scenario. How does being out of shape in that line of work create a more dangerous situation for you as an officer?

Clint: Well most of all it leads to more injuries. So if I were to start fighting with somebody, I’m more likely to injure myself. Because my joints, my bones, just my body's not able to protect itself as much. But for anyone who's ever been in a fight before you fight for say one minute. One minute seems like a lifetime if it's a fight that you're legitimately fighting with somebody and if you run out of energy, if you gas out on that, the aspect, they’ll get the upper hand on you easily. That's why you know luckily, I’m good with my tactics and how I approach different situations and I’m good with my wrestling skills or whatever else it may be.

But if that person was in better shape than me and I wasn't able to take them into custody very efficiently, I would have gassed out and they could have gotten my gun. They could have taken any of the weapons on my belt and used it against me or one of my partners. And that's not something that I would ever want to happen. The safety aspect of it is just so huge when it comes to your fitness levels. I have a partner he you know was shot in the line of duty and the one thing that really saved his life was being in as good physical shape and having taken care of his body so well where it would have killed anyone else who wasn't. 

Ashlie: Yeah that's a crazy point to bring up. Can you maybe talk about how any of your training has changed in your ability to like dive into those tactics and be more resourceful by having a new physical outlook on your health as it pertains to your career.

Clint: Well it starts out, it's funny because I’m a very hands on person if need to be. I very seldom utilize any of the items on my belt. I go hands on with people if I have to and that's it that situation deems necessary. So I’ve always been the type that I won't push back and try controlling situation with my baton or pepper spray or something like that. I go straight into it and use my manpower to take them into custody. That has changed for me over the years a little bit because you know the older, I get the less I recover from you know slamming my knees on the ground or just the minor abrasions or bruises that you get. You get sore from it. But I never associated that with being overweight.

I just associated with I was getting older. When I started this journey I didn't even think of it about that and I’ve really started utilizing my own strengths and weaknesses turning those weaknesses into strengths to where I can combat those situations with minimizing injury to myself or the suspect and the tactics have changed just on, I got into a foot pursuit maybe a few weeks ago and I actually beat my trainee to this suspect because and she straight out of the academy and I’m not knocking her in any way. She's actually very capable of doing it. I just was quicker than her and I tease her all the time over it.

But it's one of those things I would have never been able to do that before and seeing what I’m capable of now compared to where I was is just an amazing feeling and it gives me motivation to keep down this journey and it also does help extremely because you have people recognized that haven't seen you in a long time like, you don't even look like the same person anymore. And I just kind of chuckle and but inside that makes you feel good. So it all goes around and around. Whether it's your own personal well-being making you feel motivated to keep going down that route or just safety wise of not injuring yourself as likely or your recovery time is a lot better if you do get injured during those altercations. 

Ashlie: So it's easy for you now to be able to identify this motivation. But you didn't have that a year ago. So if you could go back and tell yourself one year ago without any kind of prequel, without knowing what you know now what kind of advice you would give to yourself or maybe to the listener as they're listening to this. If any of this hit with them to help them to just take that first step. 

Clint: You can't give up on yourself. It's not easy. By far it's not easy but you have to keep yourself motivated and you have to have people in your life that motivate you, like you motivate me, and you have to have those forgiveness for yourself. Because there's going to be days where like you know I really don't feel like working out today and that's where that motivation factor from your spouse or whoever else it may be comes into play.

But for me personally it was, I would start working out and I would look back at when I was in high school. I could work out for hours and I would be sore the next day but I could go back and do it again and I start comparing myself to how I used to be compared to where I was at that point when I started this journey and get less motivated because I’m like I can't do what I used to be able to do. So why am I even trying. 

Ashlie: And I’m just thinking back to when this new journey began for you. I've always worked out and there's been countless times where I’ll be upstairs working out and you would be downstairs doing whatever it was that you were doing but not working out with me. And in reflecting back to where I see that your turning point first started with all of this, I drink a green drink every single day, I do it religiously. And I remember you decided let me try it out. I started to talk to you about all the health benefits of it.

You know I have a stomach condition, so I had to make sure that I really researched every little ingredient in this particular drink. And it was trial and error and so I had been taking this green drink for about six months or so.  And this is a powdered green drink one that when we're on the go we drink. And I remember you were apprehensive, and you were worried that it was going to cause you more harm than good. And so I remember the first time that you ever drink it and you had a little bit of a sour face but then you understood that this actually doesn't taste bad at all. This one that we have in particular it tastes like green tea.  It's awesome and it has two servings of vegetables, tons of micronutrients, minerals and I remember you telling me you had an upset tummy felt like the first week or so but then you stuck with it and you started drinking it every single day. And I think that one small change started to snowball and lead to more and more changes in your life.

Clint: Absolutely. That one little change for me was like well I took this step, so let me take the next step. And it just snowballed from there. And so when I started drinking that I started working out a little bit more when I didn't feel motivated. 

Ashlie: I kicked you between the legs. 

Clint: You would, after I got up from the ground, I would get upstairs and I’d workout. And that green drink I never really thought about it that way of that was that first step for me to really start changing the behaviors, my patterns that I had before, and it was just a simple scoop of green drink in the morning.

Ashlie: And we hear the experts, we hear the gurus, we hear all these people at these different fad diets, and they all have their own opinions on what you should and shouldn't do. And it's my personal belief that your fitness journey belongs to you. Like your health belongs to you. And whatever pings that you as what could potentially be your first step, I would encourage you to lean into that.

Maybe you're still one of the people that drink soda or any form of sweetened drink. Maybe you think you need to live on energy drinks. Maybe it's ok for you to stop through the drive through because you just had a 12-hour shift and you think you deserve it. I get that. We've all been there. But I encourage you as you sit there to think of one thing that could be your start to your own snowball effect to start the trajectory of turning your reality into something absolutely incredible to where people don't even recognize who you are and you're proud of it.

Clint: And I have to put this in there just as the recognition side. I was somewhere I was eating lunch with my parents and they were sitting somewhere, and I walk in and my mom looks right at me and then looks down. She didn't recognize who I was and that's my own mom. 

Ashlie: And that's incredible. And another thing I think is important to point out is that you did not do any of this in an unhealthy way. You did not starve yourself. You didn't take any of these bogus fat loss pills. You didn't stick to any strategic diet, be it of a thousand or more that are out there on the market. You said okay I know what I want to be, and you incorporated your own lifestyle, your own diet, your own fitness regimen and you did a lot of trial and error to see what worked best for you. And it's hard for you as you're sitting there for any of us to understand that we have the ability to create our own diet, our own lifestyle.

It doesn't have to be this structured rubric just because it has the title keto in it. Make it your own, but it has to start somewhere. And I hope you can find that one thing, that one thing you can change in your life that will start to lead you down the path of making more like decisions and when you're able to do that and you understand that you deserve to create your own path, your own journey, then you're really able to enjoy your tactical living.

[Intro]

911, what's the nature of your emergency?

Ashlie: Welcome back to another episode of tactical living by Leo warriors. I'm your host Ashlie Walton.

Clint: And I'm your cohost Clint Walton.

Ashlie: And for today's episode I want to talk about how important it is for the health of a first responder to be in alignment with their career choice. So just sit back, relax and enjoy today's content. Now Clint I am going to pick at you a little bit.

Clint: Dang it.

Ashlie: I want to just have this journey where we can reflect on this time last year versus where you're at today in terms of your physical health and how that pertains to your line of work.

Clint: You know this on last year I weighed two hundred and eighty-three pounds and over this journey where I've really, I had an epiphany almost of changing my outlook on food. I didn't do any of the fat diets. I really darted to eat things that gave me nutrition instead of eating processed foods and everything all the time and when I had that epiphany and made it so easy for me just to lose the weight and stop eating the junk food that's out there and through that it's increased my energy levels. It's you know made me feel better about myself and tying that into you know law enforcement, a lot of times you know I got an ideal suspects and they look at you like man I could run away from this guy and he would never catch me.

Ashlie: Can we dive into that a little bit. And can you maybe think about some things that were actually difficult for you to do being overweight that you identify now that really held you back in your career,

Clint: You know being overweight is not fun. But it was comfortable for me at the time. In going into my day to day job you know I had to get bigger uniforms. I had an appearance where I felt I didn't look as professional as I wanted to. It was one of those things where I just didn't feel like I could, if someone did run for me, I felt like I couldn't catch them. So I didn't let that happen. But in those instances that we all have where they decide to run or they decide to fight, my endurance just wouldn't have been there. And that led to a safety issue for me. And that's not even what gave me the motivation to want to change my outlook on food or to really start bringing in physical fitness into my life as a regular practice. It was just my own feelings about myself.

Ashlie: So can you talk about those moments of the possibility of inflicting maybe a lack of safety on yourself as an officer because of being overweight, not in shape and not having that endurance. Like put yourself in the worst-case scenario. How does being out of shape in that line of work create a more dangerous situation for you as an officer?

Clint: Well most of all it leads to more injuries. So if I were to start fighting with somebody, I'm more likely to injure myself. Because my joints, my bones, just my body's not able to protect itself as much. But for anyone who's ever been in a fight before you fight for say one minute. One minute seems like a lifetime if it's a fight that you're legitimately fighting with somebody and if you run out of energy, if you gas out on that, the aspect, they'll get the upper hand on you easily. That's why you know luckily, I'm good with my tactics and how I approach different situations and I'm good with my wrestling skills or whatever else it may be.

But if that person was in better shape than me and I wasn't able to take them into custody very efficiently, I would have gassed out and they could have gotten my gun. They could have taken any of the weapons on my belt and used it against me or one of my partners. And that's not something that I would ever want to happen. The safety aspect of it is just so huge when it comes to your fitness levels. I have a partner he you know was shot in the line of duty and the one thing that really saved his life was being in as good physical shape and having taken care of his body so well where it would have killed anyone else who wasn't.

Ashlie: Yeah that's a crazy point to bring up. Can you maybe talk about how any of your training has changed in your ability to like dive into those tactics and be more resourceful by having a new physical outlook on your health as it pertains to your career.

Clint: Well it starts out, it's funny because I'm a very hands on person if need to be. I very seldom utilize any of the items on my belt. I go hands on with people if I have to and that's it that situation deems necessary. So I've always been the type that I won't push back and try controlling situation with my baton or pepper spray or something like that. I go straight into it and use my manpower to take them into custody. That has changed for me over the years a little bit because you know the older, I get the less I recover from you know slamming my knees on the ground or just the minor abrasions or bruises that you get. You get sore from it. But I never associated that with being overweight.

I just associated with I was getting older. When I started this journey I didn't even think of it about that and I've really started utilizing my own strengths and weaknesses turning those weaknesses into strengths to where I can combat those situations with minimizing injury to myself or the suspect and the tactics have changed just on, I got into a foot pursuit maybe a few weeks ago and I actually beat my trainee to this suspect because and she straight out of the academy and I'm not knocking her in any way. She's actually very capable of doing it. I just was quicker than her and I tease her all the time over it.

But it's one of those things I would have never been able to do that before and seeing what I'm capable of now compared to where I was is just an amazing feeling and it gives me motivation to keep down this journey and it also does help extremely because you have people recognized that haven't seen you in a long time like, you don't even look like the same person anymore. And I just kind of chuckle and but inside that makes you feel good. So it all goes around and around. Whether it's your own personal well-being making you feel motivated to keep going down that route or just safety wise of not injuring yourself as likely or your recovery time is a lot better if you do get injured during those altercations.

Ashlie: So it's easy for you now to be able to identify this motivation. But you didn't have that a year ago. So if you could go back and tell yourself one year ago without any kind of prequel, without knowing what you know now what kind of advice you would give to yourself or maybe to the listener as they're listening to this. If any of this hit with them to help them to just take that first step.

Clint: You can't give up on yourself. It's not easy. By far it's not easy but you have to keep yourself motivated and you have to have people in your life that motivate you, like you motivate me, and you have to have those forgiveness for yourself. Because there's going to be days where like you know I really don't feel like working out today and that's where that motivation factor from your spouse or whoever else it may be comes into play.

But for me personally it was, I would start working out and I would look back at when I was in high school. I could work out for hours and I would be sore the next day but I could go back and do it again and I start comparing myself to how I used to be compared to where I was at that point when I started this journey and get less motivated because I'm like I can't do what I used to be able to do. So why am I even trying.

Ashlie: And I'm just thinking back to when this new journey began for you. I've always worked out and there's been countless times where I'll be upstairs working out and you would be downstairs doing whatever it was that you were doing but not working out with me. And in reflecting back to where I see that your turning point first started with all of this, I drink a green drink every single day, I do it religiously. And I remember you decided let me try it out. I started to talk to you about all the health benefits of it.

You know I have a stomach condition, so I had to make sure that I really researched every little ingredient in this particular drink. And it was trial and error and so I had been taking this green drink for about six months or so. And this is a powdered green drink one that when we're on the go we drink. And I remember you were apprehensive, and you were worried that it was going to cause you more harm than good. And so I remember the first time that you ever drink it and you had a little bit of a sour face but then you understood that this actually doesn't taste bad at all. This one that we have in particular it tastes like green tea. It's awesome and it has two servings of vegetables, tons of micronutrients, minerals and I remember you telling me you had an upset tummy felt like the first week or so but then you stuck with it and you started drinking it every single day. And I think that one small change started to snowball and lead to more and more changes in your life.

Clint: Absolutely. That one little change for me was like well I took this step, so let me take the next step. And it just snowballed from there. And so when I started drinking that I started working out a little bit more when I didn't feel motivated.

Ashlie: I kicked you between the legs.

Clint: You would, after I got up from the ground, I would get upstairs and I'd workout. And that green drink I never really thought about it that way of that was that first step for me to really start changing the behaviors, my patterns that I had before, and it was just a simple scoop of green drink in the morning.

Ashlie: And we hear the experts, we hear the gurus, we hear all these people at these different fad diets, and they all have their own opinions on what you should and shouldn't do. And it's my personal belief that your fitness journey belongs to you. Like your health belongs to you. And whatever pings that you as what could potentially be your first step, I would encourage you to lean into that.

Maybe you're still one of the people that drink soda or any form of sweetened drink. Maybe you think you need to live on energy drinks. Maybe it's ok for you to stop through the drive through because you just had a 12-hour shift and you think you deserve it. I get that. We've all been there. But I encourage you as you sit there to think of one thing that could be your start to your own snowball effect to start the trajectory of turning your reality into something absolutely incredible to where people don't even recognize who you are and you're proud of it.

Clint: And I have to put this in there just as the recognition side. I was somewhere I was eating lunch with my parents and they were sitting somewhere, and I walk in and my mom looks right at me and then looks down. She didn't recognize who I was and that's my own mom.

Ashlie: And that's incredible. And another thing I think is important to point out is that you did not do any of this in an unhealthy way. You did not starve yourself. You didn't take any of these bogus fat loss pills. You didn't stick to any strategic diet, be it of a thousand or more that are out there on the market. You said okay I know what I want to be, and you incorporated your own lifestyle, your own diet, your own fitness regimen and you did a lot of trial and error to see what worked best for you. And it's hard for you as you're sitting there for any of us to understand that we have the ability to create our own diet, our own lifestyle.

It doesn't have to be this structured rubric just because it has the title keto in it. Make it your own, but it has to start somewhere. And I hope you can find that one thing, that one thing you can change in your life that will start to lead you down the path of making more like decisions and when you're able to do that and you understand that you deserve to create your own path, your own journey, then you're really able to enjoy your tactical living.

[Intro]

911 what’s the nature of your emergency? 

Ashlie: Welcome back to another episode of tactical living by Leo warriors. I'm your host. Ashlie Walton. 

Clint: And I’m your co-host Clint Walton.

Ashlie: In today's episode we're going to talk about the power of your mind and how having the ability to sift through your thoughts to pull out the positive ones can help you in almost every uncomfortable situation. So today just sit back relax and enjoy the content. There was a moment that I can think of very vividly that I have revisited at least a thousand times in my mind since it happened, a moment so funny that because of how many times I’ve revisited that moment I can tell you everything that that picture in my mind looks like. I could tell you the colors. I could tell you the smell. I can tell you how I felt and even thinking about it right now, I want to like stupid laugh. So when you're married to a first responder especially in the beginning there's not a lot of time that you have to spend together.

This one evening in particular Clint and I had the opportunity to go and hang out and do something. It had probably been about a year and a half since we went to see a movie. And we decided to head up the movie theater. I don't even remember what movie it was. And just have a good time spending some time together. Now in true fashion we got into the theater, purchased our tickets. Clint gets the biggest bucket of popcorn that they sold, the biggest probably diet coke that was available. And we give our tickets and we start walking down this long hall to find the theater that our movie was playing in. 

And we're happy and Clint has both the popcorn in one hand and this giant soda and the other hand and we're just laughing and we're just happy we're getting ready to see a movie it was later at night and I remember this particular showing was at the very end of a long hallway. So we were walking and just laughing and probably bullshitting the entire time as we're walking down the hallway and it's really hard for me not to like to bust out laughing just as I’m recounting this story. But let me give it a shot. So let's say that the theater was number 13. And we're getting ready to walk into the door for a theater number 13. And Clint’s just so jolly, I can see him so vividly. And he starts to walk not into the door of the theater, you can enter on the left you can enter on the right and directly in the center is this dark black wall. And instead of walking into one of the doors I see him heading for the wall.

So I stop and I am about 10 feet back from him. I. Watch and he face plants straight into this black wall. There was popcorn that flew everywhere. His soda top popped open, there was ice cubes and soda everywhere. He was so wet. And I remember looking around me like did anybody else see that? And we were all by ourselves. I was laughing so hard I literally like was about to pee my pants. And poor Clint he had his tail between his legs because his wife was just laughing her ass off about what he just did.

Clint: And you know in my defense the wall was black. It looked like it was the entry door. And I didn't even really notice. You know how the doors are open normally you think you could just walk through and it was dark inside. 

Ashlie: It was so funny. As you're sitting there maybe you can think of a time when your spouse has done something that you're just like are you freaking kidding me. And so the reason I bring up this moment and you can hear it in my voice I’m sure. And even Clint bursting out laughing as he's thinking about what happened. As I said I remember the look on his face. I remember seeing the brown diet soda like fly all over the place, the shiny ice cubes on the floor. I've literally revisited this moment as many times as I’ve needed to. And what I mean by that is I’ve had a lot of moments when I’ve been uncomfortable.

Maybe I’m getting ready to present in a meeting, maybe I’m getting ready to meet somebody of higher authority let's say and it makes me uncomfortable. I've used this going into interviews before. I've used this dealing with my sick and dying mom as a way to help me to enhance my mood during those darkest times. And it's fascinating to see the way that you're able to pull from a memory like that and not only recall it but to also have the ability to dive into that moment so realistically that you can put yourself there and I’d use that moment not only as a time to be able to reflect upon when I need it, but also a time for me to allow myself to make a mood shift anytime that I need to. 

Clint: You know and that's something that you have a completely different outlook on than me when it comes to how funny that specific instance was just because it hurt. I mean it's definitely funny and I can definitely laugh at it. But imagine my face just smacking into the wall.  There was no bracing, there was no stopping and realizing that everything was okay. It was painful, but in looking at that and everything you just said what do you do negatively that focuses on the negatives of something compared to those positives, utilizing that same thought process of thinking about the store you've created in your own head or going down the negative route and making yourself feel worse about the situation. 

Ashlie: Absolutely. And that doesn't mean that. Every time that I’m in a slump that I even remember to pull from that memory. We all it's in our human makeup to go down this negative spiral. And it takes a lot of repetition and a lot of practice to be able to take ownership and be the CEO of your own mind and not allow certain circumstances, instances and especially people to have the power over the influence of how you allow yourself to feel and react to any situation that you're in. 

Clint: And it's hard to get out of your own head when it comes to that stuff and it's you know focusing on different thought processes different meditation techniques whatever it may be is really key in getting out of living in your head and living within presence in your body.

Ashlie: And it boils down to the fact that we have the choice, we have the choice to say, okay here's this situation, I just got another bill in the mail that I didn't expect to get. So with that I can either choose to pull from the pity pile, of course this happened to me. This always happens to me. And I’m no different. Clint you and I spent a majority of our marriage probably the first six or seven years or so of always allowing ourselves to fall into that negative spiral of, well shit of course this happened to us. It always happens to us. Who else would it happen to? 

Clint: And every time, well what's going to happen next. You know I’m sure well if it happens this way, this is just going to get worse from there.

Ashlie: Yeah. We allowed that to control every aspect of our life and we had this negative connotation that almost created this pretense for how we allowed things to enter into our lives. And we didn't know how to control that. And I remember very vividly we took step number one and when we did that it changed everything. All that shit that always happened to us, it stopped happening. And it's not some magic tool. I remember the first step for us was reading the secret. They also have that on video form. 

So we watched the video first and you and I spent a week reading it aloud to one another and we would stop, and we would talk about it and maybe we read a chapter or two night together. But we practice that, and we made sure that we were all on the same page and understanding it and knowing like let's try this. Because what we've been doing before hasn't been working and I want to touch on that for a second. Because I think that a lot of people might think it's like woo woo and I get that. And it's understanding the principles and being able to articulate it in a way to where you can apply that in your own life and even the visualization techniques. 

We started doing that and one of the craziest things and I don't want this to be taken out of context. I'm not saying we study the secret and then boom this magically happened what I’m about to explain. But I truly believe that this is the reason as to how and why these circumstances were created. And I wanted a z4. It was my dream car. The most beautiful car you can imagine, black leather seats, a light vehicle. I pictured it. I saw pictures of it. I replayed that image in my mind over and over again.

And I drove in an eclipse at the time and I remember every single time I would drive my car, my eclipse I would pretend that I was driving that z4 instead. I envisioned the way that this steering wheel felt. I pretended that I can smell what this new car, with this new leather smell like around me. I knew exactly how it felt in those moments to be driving a z4 as I was driving my eclipse. And it felt good. And it just made me want that z4 more than anything. And I decided to just try that technique and it was probably a good six months and the time came where I had finished my MBA and we talked about it and we decided together that you know what let's make this dream a reality. And of course you need to start. You go and you check out different dealerships. We searched online for days and it wasn't exactly the car that we could find.  

Most of them were a white car with a red leather seats. A lot of them were far away to where you would have to pay the hefty convenience fee of being able to ship it over to your location. And we just couldn't find it and I remember not being frustrated but just thinking to myself like, okay well if I can't find it, like it just wasn't meant to be. And I knew for sure and I had talked with Clint about that…that I wasn't going to be swayed into getting something else. Like it was either this specific car with these specific features or it wasn't. I was just going to keep driving my eclipse. I'd rather do that than not have exactly what I wanted. So we go to the dealership, one of the dealerships and we had looked online and Clint said Ashlie I found your car, it's at this dealership. We go there, we're scouting the parking lot looking for this car. I'm so excited. Clint says it's here. And then we're greeted by probably a thousand salesmen. And I don't know how that even works. Like how did a salesman say okay you can have that one. Maybe they take turns.

But the salesman comes to us and I tell him, I don't want to waste any time. This is the car that I want. We know that you have it on inventory because we saw it online. And he says I’m sorry, but we don't have that car and we're arguing with him a little bit, because we came here specifically for this car. We know that you have it. Technology tells us the truth always. And it's showing as being here on your lot right now. I just can't see it. So tell me where it's at. No mam can't help you it's not here. So he leaves and he goes into the office. I let him know, he tries of course to convince me to get another car and he comes back out and he says, you guys I’m sorry but you're right we do have this car. It's here right now. It came to us on the lot with one of the speakers was damaged. Not even the speaker, it was like the metal casing that surrounds the speaker on the side panel. And I’m like, well shit you're fixing it right now, cool.

Long story short I was able to get that car and I can't even explain to you…that was one of the most exciting purchases that I’ve ever had in my life. And I remember driving that car and it felt exactly how I had envisioned it to feel when I was driving my eclipse pretending I was driving that car for six months. I remember going to the window at the office managing a pediatric practice and, in the morning, when the sun would come up, of course I got there at five o'clock every morning. I would just sit there for a moment and just stare out the window at my car ingratitude not believing like holy shit this car is really mine. I am so grateful that this belongs to me. And this isn't to try to showcase any kind of bragging rights.

I just want to demonstrate to you the power of being able to use your positive thinking and understand that it's a way to allow every other action and reaction that you make in your life to align with that positive thought. I know that we were able to as a byproduct of me envisioning this purchase work a little harder, save a little bit more money. Do some rearranging and really figure out how to make that a reality. And it wasn't like okay I want this car. Now let's try to strategize what we need to do to do it. It was an inadvertent reaction to having that positive thought. And when you're able to just take the ability of being able to shift what it is that you're thinking and really own your own way of thinking, then you're able to make incredible things happen in your life. And by shifting from the negativity that's so easy to get caught up in to and by demonstrating what it is that you actually want in your life and then allowing yourself to be so immersed in that positive image, then you're really able to enjoy your tactical living.

[Intro]

911 what's the nature of your emergency?

Ashlie: Welcome back to another episode of tactical living by Leo warriors. I'm your host. Ashlie Walton.

Clint: And I'm your co-host Clint Walton.

Ashlie: In today's episode we're going to talk about the power of your mind and how having the ability to sift through your thoughts to pull out the positive ones can help you in almost every uncomfortable situation. So today just sit back relax and enjoy the content. There was a moment that I can think of very vividly that I have revisited at least a thousand times in my mind since it happened, a moment so funny that because of how many times I've revisited that moment I can tell you everything that that picture in my mind looks like. I could tell you the colors. I could tell you the smell. I can tell you how I felt and even thinking about it right now, I want to like stupid laugh. So when you're married to a first responder especially in the beginning there's not a lot of time that you have to spend together.

This one evening in particular Clint and I had the opportunity to go and hang out and do something. It had probably been about a year and a half since we went to see a movie. And we decided to head up the movie theater. I don't even remember what movie it was. And just have a good time spending some time together. Now in true fashion we got into the theater, purchased our tickets. Clint gets the biggest bucket of popcorn that they sold, the biggest probably diet coke that was available. And we give our tickets and we start walking down this long hall to find the theater that our movie was playing in.

And we're happy and Clint has both the popcorn in one hand and this giant soda and the other hand and we're just laughing and we're just happy we're getting ready to see a movie it was later at night and I remember this particular showing was at the very end of a long hallway. So we were walking and just laughing and probably bullshitting the entire time as we're walking down the hallway and it's really hard for me not to like to bust out laughing just as I'm recounting this story. But let me give it a shot. So let's say that the theater was number 13. And we're getting ready to walk into the door for a theater number 13. And Clint's just so jolly, I can see him so vividly. And he starts to walk not into the door of the theater, you can enter on the left you can enter on the right and directly in the center is this dark black wall. And instead of walking into one of the doors I see him heading for the wall.

So I stop and I am about 10 feet back from him. I. Watch and he face plants straight into this black wall. There was popcorn that flew everywhere. His soda top popped open, there was ice cubes and soda everywhere. He was so wet. And I remember looking around me like did anybody else see that? And we were all by ourselves. I was laughing so hard I literally like was about to pee my pants. And poor Clint he had his tail between his legs because his wife was just laughing her ass off about what he just did.

Clint: And you know in my defense the wall was black. It looked like it was the entry door. And I didn't even really notice. You know how the doors are open normally you think you could just walk through and it was dark inside.

Ashlie: It was so funny. As you're sitting there maybe you can think of a time when your spouse has done something that you're just like are you freaking kidding me. And so the reason I bring up this moment and you can hear it in my voice I'm sure. And even Clint bursting out laughing as he's thinking about what happened. As I said I remember the look on his face. I remember seeing the brown diet soda like fly all over the place, the shiny ice cubes on the floor. I've literally revisited this moment as many times as I've needed to. And what I mean by that is I've had a lot of moments when I've been uncomfortable.

Maybe I'm getting ready to present in a meeting, maybe I'm getting ready to meet somebody of higher authority let's say and it makes me uncomfortable. I've used this going into interviews before. I've used this dealing with my sick and dying mom as a way to help me to enhance my mood during those darkest times. And it's fascinating to see the way that you're able to pull from a memory like that and not only recall it but to also have the ability to dive into that moment so realistically that you can put yourself there and I'd use that moment not only as a time to be able to reflect upon when I need it, but also a time for me to allow myself to make a mood shift anytime that I need to.

Clint: You know and that's something that you have a completely different outlook on than me when it comes to how funny that specific instance was just because it hurt. I mean it's definitely funny and I can definitely laugh at it. But imagine my face just smacking into the wall. There was no bracing, there was no stopping and realizing that everything was okay. It was painful, but in looking at that and everything you just said what do you do negatively that focuses on the negatives of something compared to those positives, utilizing that same thought process of thinking about the store you've created in your own head or going down the negative route and making yourself feel worse about the situation.

Ashlie: Absolutely. And that doesn't mean that. Every time that I'm in a slump that I even remember to pull from that memory. We all it's in our human makeup to go down this negative spiral. And it takes a lot of repetition and a lot of practice to be able to take ownership and be the CEO of your own mind and not allow certain circumstances, instances and especially people to have the power over the influence of how you allow yourself to feel and react to any situation that you're in.

Clint: And it's hard to get out of your own head when it comes to that stuff and it's you know focusing on different thought processes different meditation techniques whatever it may be is really key in getting out of living in your head and living within presence in your body.

Ashlie: And it boils down to the fact that we have the choice, we have the choice to say, okay here's this situation, I just got another bill in the mail that I didn't expect to get. So with that I can either choose to pull from the pity pile, of course this happened to me. This always happens to me. And I'm no different. Clint you and I spent a majority of our marriage probably the first six or seven years or so of always allowing ourselves to fall into that negative spiral of, well shit of course this happened to us. It always happens to us. Who else would it happen to?

Clint: And every time, well what's going to happen next. You know I'm sure well if it happens this way, this is just going to get worse from there.

Ashlie: Yeah. We allowed that to control every aspect of our life and we had this negative connotation that almost created this pretense for how we allowed things to enter into our lives. And we didn't know how to control that. And I remember very vividly we took step number one and when we did that it changed everything. All that shit that always happened to us, it stopped happening. And it's not some magic tool. I remember the first step for us was reading the secret. They also have that on video form.

So we watched the video first and you and I spent a week reading it aloud to one another and we would stop, and we would talk about it and maybe we read a chapter or two night together. But we practice that, and we made sure that we were all on the same page and understanding it and knowing like let's try this. Because what we've been doing before hasn't been working and I want to touch on that for a second. Because I think that a lot of people might think it's like woo woo and I get that. And it's understanding the principles and being able to articulate it in a way to where you can apply that in your own life and even the visualization techniques.

We started doing that and one of the craziest things and I don't want this to be taken out of context. I'm not saying we study the secret and then boom this magically happened what I'm about to explain. But I truly believe that this is the reason as to how and why these circumstances were created. And I wanted a z4. It was my dream car. The most beautiful car you can imagine, black leather seats, a light vehicle. I pictured it. I saw pictures of it. I replayed that image in my mind over and over again.

And I drove in an eclipse at the time and I remember every single time I would drive my car, my eclipse I would pretend that I was driving that z4 instead. I envisioned the way that this steering wheel felt. I pretended that I can smell what this new car, with this new leather smell like around me. I knew exactly how it felt in those moments to be driving a z4 as I was driving my eclipse. And it felt good. And it just made me want that z4 more than anything. And I decided to just try that technique and it was probably a good six months and the time came where I had finished my MBA and we talked about it and we decided together that you know what let's make this dream a reality. And of course you need to start. You go and you check out different dealerships. We searched online for days and it wasn't exactly the car that we could find.

Most of them were a white car with a red leather seats. A lot of them were far away to where you would have to pay the hefty convenience fee of being able to ship it over to your location. And we just couldn't find it and I remember not being frustrated but just thinking to myself like, okay well if I can't find it, like it just wasn't meant to be. And I knew for sure and I had talked with Clint about that…that I wasn't going to be swayed into getting something else. Like it was either this specific car with these specific features or it wasn't. I was just going to keep driving my eclipse. I'd rather do that than not have exactly what I wanted. So we go to the dealership, one of the dealerships and we had looked online and Clint said Ashlie I found your car, it's at this dealership. We go there, we're scouting the parking lot looking for this car. I'm so excited. Clint says it's here. And then we're greeted by probably a thousand salesmen. And I don't know how that even works. Like how did a salesman say okay you can have that one. Maybe they take turns.

But the salesman comes to us and I tell him, I don't want to waste any time. This is the car that I want. We know that you have it on inventory because we saw it online. And he says I'm sorry, but we don't have that car and we're arguing with him a little bit, because we came here specifically for this car. We know that you have it. Technology tells us the truth always. And it's showing as being here on your lot right now. I just can't see it. So tell me where it's at. No mam can't help you it's not here. So he leaves and he goes into the office. I let him know, he tries of course to convince me to get another car and he comes back out and he says, you guys I'm sorry but you're right we do have this car. It's here right now. It came to us on the lot with one of the speakers was damaged. Not even the speaker, it was like the metal casing that surrounds the speaker on the side panel. And I'm like, well shit you're fixing it right now, cool.

Long story short I was able to get that car and I can't even explain to you…that was one of the most exciting purchases that I've ever had in my life. And I remember driving that car and it felt exactly how I had envisioned it to feel when I was driving my eclipse pretending I was driving that car for six months. I remember going to the window at the office managing a pediatric practice and, in the morning, when the sun would come up, of course I got there at five o'clock every morning. I would just sit there for a moment and just stare out the window at my car ingratitude not believing like holy shit this car is really mine. I am so grateful that this belongs to me. And this isn't to try to showcase any kind of bragging rights.

I just want to demonstrate to you the power of being able to use your positive thinking and understand that it's a way to allow every other action and reaction that you make in your life to align with that positive thought. I know that we were able to as a byproduct of me envisioning this purchase work a little harder, save a little bit more money. Do some rearranging and really figure out how to make that a reality. And it wasn't like okay I want this car. Now let's try to strategize what we need to do to do it. It was an inadvertent reaction to having that positive thought. And when you're able to just take the ability of being able to shift what it is that you're thinking and really own your own way of thinking, then you're able to make incredible things happen in your life. And by shifting from the negativity that's so easy to get caught up in to and by demonstrating what it is that you actually want in your life and then allowing yourself to be so immersed in that positive image, then you're really able to enjoy your tactical living.

Ashlie: Welcome back to another episode of Tactical Living by LEO Warriors. I'm your host Ashlie Walton. 

Clint: And I’m your co-host Clint Walton.

Ashlie: So just sit back relax and enjoy today's content. 

Clint: In today's episode I want to talk about teamwork. You know I started a detail over five years ago where I had a partner that was teaching me the ins and outs of dealing with the homeless and it seemed like every day I went to work and no matter what I said, no matter what I did I was wrong and we're both officers. She had a little bit more seniority than I did but there was nothing that gave her power over me other than of course my boss telling me that she going to guide me to teach me to know what I need to do. But I had my own ideas. I had my own ways of doing things just as she did. So after maybe a month of working with this partner I got to a point of where every day I dreaded going to work. Because I was wrong no matter what I did. And in my opinion, we weren't being productive and making a difference in any way. 

Ashlie: And I remember that time very clearly because it impacted our home life significantly. You would come home; you were exhausted all of the time. It took a lot to get you out of that funk and actually into the reality of like hey baby you're not at work anymore like I’m your wife.

Clint: Yeah and it completely just screws up your whole day. And I would come home and I’d just like I don't want to deal with anything. I am mentally drained, I’m physically drained and I don't want to deal with life and I’m not saying that in a negative aspect. But I’m saying that of I just want to turn on the TV and completely close myself off to the world. So after dealing with this, her and I parted ways she went on to newer and better things for herself and I worked in the team environment for another four plus years and had no issues. And it was great. You know I worked on great teams, I had great partners and a lot of it was because I was given the freedom to really accomplish what I knew I could accomplish, and I didn't do it alone. And I’m not saying that, my partners were huge in that and my bosses allowing me to do that was even more amazing. But now I rewind maybe a year ago now I got another partner. He had more seniority than me, but you know I liked the guy. Him and I have always gotten along but he's a very gruff individual put it that way. Super nice guy once you get to know him and very vocal in his thoughts and opinions. He stepped into our team and him and I started working together and every day he would give me gruff over everything I wanted to do or explain to him well this is why we do things. And he didn't agree with that. So I started letting that affect me more and more every day till it got to the point of I didn't want, I wasn't happy doing what I was doing anymore. I still did my job to the best of my capabilities, but I wasn't enjoying work as I did the previous four years. And then I recognized everything that I said to him or he said to me is one of us had to always be right. We both battled this every day of this is how we do things. And he would say to me, well why do we do it this way? And then I would explain it. He said well I’m not going to do it that way. And so I would get pissed off over that and he would get pissed off that, I would get pissed off at him for wanting himself to do it his own way and use his own ideas and approach things in a different way just because they're different than mine I didn't agree with them. Doesn't mean I was wrong; doesn't mean he was wrong. But we both wanted to be right. So in every day both of us just kind of said hello and went our separate ways. And until I really sat down and recognized, I was doing the same thing to him that my previous partner did to me and I realized that wasn't fair to him and it wasn't fair to myself because I wasn't, I was coming home so stressed out and he was doing the same. And it led to other issues at work in reference to that just nothing serious just very minor problems. After recognizing this you know I took a different approach and really let him express what he wanted to express and do what he wanted to do. And he had some really good ideas and it let him be more open to accepting my ideas as well. And we started working together instead of working against each other and over time our friendship still is there I believe and him and I really, we get along, if he has his idea, he'll do it and I won't say anything about it. If it doesn't work, he'll see his failures. I don't need to bring those up to him and I don't need to protect him from making those. All I need to do is do what I do best and all he needs to do is what he does best. And after working through that him and I, there's no tension anymore. There's nothing that holds either one of us back. Now the environment has changed, and we actually ended up working together again and I believe that you know him, and I can fully work together. I wouldn't want to work with him on a day to day basis because I know it would lead to issues of each of us wanting to control the situation and him having his way and me having mine. But it's something that we can work through in a team environment with eight other officers that we work with.

Ashlie: You know as you're sitting there telling me this story and telling the listener your feelings and how you were able to recognize those inhibitions in yourself based on your own past experience. There's a story that comes to mind and I’m doing a training right now through Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi. And if anybody doesn't know who Dean Graziosi is. He's one of like the best marketing sellers that you will ever come across. You can YouTube one of his marketing videos and you'll see what I’m talking about. But in the training he's discussing the worst time in his life when he was going through a divorce with his wife and throughout the whole time it's just agony like you every day he didn't have any drive, he didn't have anything extra to give and it got to the point where he started to wonder and worry about what happens when my kids start to have summer vacation. What happens when the holidays come? Like I’m not going to be able to be instilled in their life and be a part of all of these big elements watching them mature and grow. Because I’m only going to have them half of the time and it's killing him. Every day he's just sobbing, and he has no understanding of how to make this right. He knows that he and his now ex-wife couldn't make it work. They tried and it just it wasn't happening. It was making it a worse lifestyle for their family and more importantly for his children that he knew they had to part ways that he couldn't find this medium to where he would still be that immense father figure that he knew he needed based on his own upbringing and he had this, everybody calls it aha. We call it Clint calls it a fucking moment. And he was sitting there at his house and he said the only way that I can still make this work and see my kids as much as I want to and still be involved in their birthdays and the holidays is if I learned how to be best friends with my ex-wife and this is really similar to the story that you just shared Clint. Because at the time that he decided to make that change, his entire world and his outlook on it and even his daily function instantly flipped around for him. And when you have the ability to it's like step back for a second and see the big picture in an unbiased view, I really think you're able to pull from things that you're never able to pull from when you're caught up in those emotions. Because had you looking at the situation back when you were having those nights coming home feeling such distress and the agony of going to work again the next day, you would have never been able to see like wow I’m actually doing this to somebody else. Like I don't want anybody to feel that way that I felt, and I think when you have the ability to flip the situation around and take a step back, you're not wrong for changing your mind. You're not wrong for saying I didn't see things clearly the first time around. I think if anything else it just makes you grow when you have the ability to say you know what? The way I viewed life back then is not my reality today. The way that other people function around me might not be the same as what I choose for my own life. And having the ability to do that in the strength that it does require in order to pull yourself out from that. It really allows you to embody a completely different experience in life that you can then take and carry with you forever. It would be my thought process that you're probably not going to be in that same situation as deep as you once were now having these tools in your back pocket.

Clint: Absolutely not. And in every day that I have gone back to work there's no reason for hanging onto those feelings of anger. Those feelings of I want to be right. Because the only person it truly affected was me. 

Ashlie: And we go through a lot of that with our coaching training you know as students ourselves. And it's constant and we have to remind ourselves there is this amnesia effect that we teach to our own clients where it's so easy to forget these tools and you know forget to utilize them in the moment when you're caught up in emotion. But the more and more that you pull from that and that you're able to do it even after the fact of a situation let's say that it becomes easier in that environment, in that argument or dispute or whatever it is to restart to recognize those things and then they become second nature almost. And when you have the ability to identify how you want to control your own mind and you understand that nobody else has the right to be the CEO of controlling your own thoughts and emotions, then you're really able to enjoy your tactical living.

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Ashlie: Welcome back to another episode of Tactical Living by LEO Warriors. I'm your host Ashlie Walton.

Clint: And I'm your co-host Clint Walton.

Ashlie: So just sit back relax and enjoy today's content.

Clint: In today's episode I want to talk about teamwork. You know I started a detail over five years ago where I had a partner that was teaching me the ins and outs of dealing with the homeless and it seemed like every day I went to work and no matter what I said, no matter what I did I was wrong and we're both officers. She had a little bit more seniority than I did but there was nothing that gave her power over me other than of course my boss telling me that she going to guide me to teach me to know what I need to do. But I had my own ideas. I had my own ways of doing things just as she did. So after maybe a month of working with this partner I got to a point of where every day I dreaded going to work. Because I was wrong no matter what I did. And in my opinion, we weren't being productive and making a difference in any way.

Ashlie: And I remember that time very clearly because it impacted our home life significantly. You would come home; you were exhausted all of the time. It took a lot to get you out of that funk and actually into the reality of like hey baby you're not at work anymore like I'm your wife.

Clint: Yeah and it completely just screws up your whole day. And I would come home and I'd just like I don't want to deal with anything. I am mentally drained, I'm physically drained and I don't want to deal with life and I'm not saying that in a negative aspect. But I'm saying that of I just want to turn on the TV and completely close myself off to the world. So after dealing with this, her and I parted ways she went on to newer and better things for herself and I worked in the team environment for another four plus years and had no issues. And it was great. You know I worked on great teams, I had great partners and a lot of it was because I was given the freedom to really accomplish what I knew I could accomplish, and I didn't do it alone. And I'm not saying that, my partners were huge in that and my bosses allowing me to do that was even more amazing. But now I rewind maybe a year ago now I got another partner. He had more seniority than me, but you know I liked the guy. Him and I have always gotten along but he's a very gruff individual put it that way. Super nice guy once you get to know him and very vocal in his thoughts and opinions. He stepped into our team and him and I started working together and every day he would give me gruff over everything I wanted to do or explain to him well this is why we do things. And he didn't agree with that. So I started letting that affect me more and more every day till it got to the point of I didn't want, I wasn't happy doing what I was doing anymore. I still did my job to the best of my capabilities, but I wasn't enjoying work as I did the previous four years. And then I recognized everything that I said to him or he said to me is one of us had to always be right. We both battled this every day of this is how we do things. And he would say to me, well why do we do it this way? And then I would explain it. He said well I'm not going to do it that way. And so I would get pissed off over that and he would get pissed off that, I would get pissed off at him for wanting himself to do it his own way and use his own ideas and approach things in a different way just because they're different than mine I didn't agree with them. Doesn't mean I was wrong; doesn't mean he was wrong. But we both wanted to be right. So in every day both of us just kind of said hello and went our separate ways. And until I really sat down and recognized, I was doing the same thing to him that my previous partner did to me and I realized that wasn't fair to him and it wasn't fair to myself because I wasn't, I was coming home so stressed out and he was doing the same. And it led to other issues at work in reference to that just nothing serious just very minor problems. After recognizing this you know I took a different approach and really let him express what he wanted to express and do what he wanted to do. And he had some really good ideas and it let him be more open to accepting my ideas as well. And we started working together instead of working against each other and over time our friendship still is there I believe and him and I really, we get along, if he has his idea, he'll do it and I won't say anything about it. If it doesn't work, he'll see his failures. I don't need to bring those up to him and I don't need to protect him from making those. All I need to do is do what I do best and all he needs to do is what he does best. And after working through that him and I, there's no tension anymore. There's nothing that holds either one of us back. Now the environment has changed, and we actually ended up working together again and I believe that you know him, and I can fully work together. I wouldn't want to work with him on a day to day basis because I know it would lead to issues of each of us wanting to control the situation and him having his way and me having mine. But it's something that we can work through in a team environment with eight other officers that we work with.

Ashlie: You know as you're sitting there telling me this story and telling the listener your feelings and how you were able to recognize those inhibitions in yourself based on your own past experience. There's a story that comes to mind and I'm doing a training right now through Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi. And if anybody doesn't know who Dean Graziosi is. He's one of like the best marketing sellers that you will ever come across. You can YouTube one of his marketing videos and you'll see what I'm talking about. But in the training he's discussing the worst time in his life when he was going through a divorce with his wife and throughout the whole time it's just agony like you every day he didn't have any drive, he didn't have anything extra to give and it got to the point where he started to wonder and worry about what happens when my kids start to have summer vacation. What happens when the holidays come? Like I'm not going to be able to be instilled in their life and be a part of all of these big elements watching them mature and grow. Because I'm only going to have them half of the time and it's killing him. Every day he's just sobbing, and he has no understanding of how to make this right. He knows that he and his now ex-wife couldn't make it work. They tried and it just it wasn't happening. It was making it a worse lifestyle for their family and more importantly for his children that he knew they had to part ways that he couldn't find this medium to where he would still be that immense father figure that he knew he needed based on his own upbringing and he had this, everybody calls it aha. We call it Clint calls it a fucking moment. And he was sitting there at his house and he said the only way that I can still make this work and see my kids as much as I want to and still be involved in their birthdays and the holidays is if I learned how to be best friends with my ex-wife and this is really similar to the story that you just shared Clint. Because at the time that he decided to make that change, his entire world and his outlook on it and even his daily function instantly flipped around for him. And when you have the ability to it's like step back for a second and see the big picture in an unbiased view, I really think you're able to pull from things that you're never able to pull from when you're caught up in those emotions. Because had you looking at the situation back when you were having those nights coming home feeling such distress and the agony of going to work again the next day, you would have never been able to see like wow I'm actually doing this to somebody else. Like I don't want anybody to feel that way that I felt, and I think when you have the ability to flip the situation around and take a step back, you're not wrong for changing your mind. You're not wrong for saying I didn't see things clearly the first time around. I think if anything else it just makes you grow when you have the ability to say you know what? The way I viewed life back then is not my reality today. The way that other people function around me might not be the same as what I choose for my own life. And having the ability to do that in the strength that it does require in order to pull yourself out from that. It really allows you to embody a completely different experience in life that you can then take and carry with you forever. It would be my thought process that you're probably not going to be in that same situation as deep as you once were now having these tools in your back pocket.

Clint: Absolutely not. And in every day that I have gone back to work there's no reason for hanging onto those feelings of anger. Those feelings of I want to be right. Because the only person it truly affected was me.

Ashlie: And we go through a lot of that with our coaching training you know as students ourselves. And it's constant and we have to remind ourselves there is this amnesia effect that we teach to our own clients where it's so easy to forget these tools and you know forget to utilize them in the moment when you're caught up in emotion. But the more and more that you pull from that and that you're able to do it even after the fact of a situation let's say that it becomes easier in that environment, in that argument or dispute or whatever it is to restart to recognize those things and then they become second nature almost. And when you have the ability to identify how you want to control your own mind and you understand that nobody else has the right to be the CEO of controlling your own thoughts and emotions, then you're really able to enjoy your tactical living.

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Ashlie: Welcome back to another episode of tactical living by Leo warriors. I'm your host Ashlie Walton and I'm here with my co-host Clint Walton. 

Clint: How are you doing. 

Ashlie: For today's episode we want to talk about social media. For us we didn't even have a social media account until October of last year. Baby how come we never had social media up until then? 

Clint: You know I've never cared for social media. I had Myspace back in what would that be? the late 90's early 2000's and when I was in high school. 

Ashlie: For anybody under the age of 20, Myspace used to be what Facebook is. But on a much smaller caliber.

Clint: And I always believed what's funny with that is I always believed that Myspace would overrule Facebook in any way. And I was like I will never sign up for Facebook because Myspace is the best. 

Ashlie: You know I was just talking about this with somebody and I don't know if you remember when we were in junior high in high school but we would have those three ring binders and we would put pictures of like all of our friends are like the coolest things for magazines in there. 

Clint: The good old glamour shot go into the mall and take pictures with a feather boa wrapped around your neck. 

Ashlie: Do you get a feather boa? The funny thing about that it goes deeper where if you weren't best friends with somebody anymore you would take their picture out of your binder and you would go to the mall and take pictures with a new best friend and then put it inside your binder. but then to go a step further you would get like 50 or a hundred of these printed out and then you would give them to all your friends. so all your friends would also put them inside of their binders telling everybody. 

Clint: That's just like baseball card trading.

Ashlie: And it's so funny because it's like Myspace had turned that into a tangible form of it like that three-ring binder.

Clint: Myspace was the end of sharing those pictures and sharing just notes back and forth between each other in class and stuff like that. And it's funny because I doubt that even happens anymore where you write a letter to somebody and you pass it to him in class. 

Ashlie: So we kind of went off on a tangent there. But going back why is it that you and I throughout the duration of our marriage. Neither one of us had ever put ourselves out there and even established any form of social media? 

Clint: Well you know being in law enforcement I've always had the perception of negativity only comes from social media. I always see the negative aspects around it, but I never tried to look for the positive either. And then I also see other officers or other people getting in trouble for things that they posted. but sitting back and looking at and now while they really shouldn't have posted it in the first place. it's a bad perception of whatever agency they work for or just as a professionalism aspect. we are held in a high regard being in law enforcement and you don't want to post standing in a pair of tactical pants with your shirt off holding your AR-15 out in the desert shooting.

Ashlie: And I know for me a lot of it was the safety element of it.

We've even paid a third-party company to constantly go on and remove our name from any sources that are public where our names or pictures of us should not be placed without intent. And as the wife of a police officer it's always important for me to make sure that we're not exposing ourselves in any way that would open us up to any more vulnerability than what’s already there just based on your profession and the truth is a big part of that was there was this transition during our dating period where I had an ex fiancé. And I wanted nothing to do with that ex fiancé nor did I want him to have any part of me. I didn't even want him to see a picture of you and I together. I wanted to stay as far away from that as possible. so that was also a big factor for it. We lead and still do lead very private lives and in our transition into social media, 99.99% of that was business induced. We had no choice.

Clint: And nowadays you can't do any type of business-related transactions without social media in some way. Social media has taken over the whole world of marketing and reaching out to clients and just developing a business from scratch.

Ashlie: And as you sit there if you can think of a single operational business, I don't care what it is. If you have a single one in mind that has the ability to function without any form of social media reach out to us, let us know. DM us Leo warriors on Instagram, Leo warriors Number one on Facebook. I would love to know if there is in fact a possibility of a company actually functioning without that outreach. 

Clint: And I have to throw this caveat out there too is everyone who already does follow us and continues to follow us, you know we appreciate all the support that you've given us, and we love seeing the stories that you share with us. it's amazing to see what inspiring people there are out there that share their story through social media. 

Ashlie: For sure. And the opposite side of that is there's so much negativity out there that we knew getting into we would see every single day on. the biggest kicker is that most of that negativity in any sort of direct targeting comes from people who choose to post shit asking for it in return. The easiest way to function on social media and the easiest way to still have an online profile with your business and even personally and still have that level of security and that level of protection is to not post the shit that you don't want people to see.

Clint: And that's where people don't completely understand. They think, "oh well if I posted no one else will see it except for who I want to see it." Well then you gave say 100 people access to that post. Now they can share that access to 100 different people and then it can go from there. The perfect instance of this here is a photo of me that we posted of me holding a little Labrador retriever and it was a cool picture and there's a funny story with that. but that will go into other podcasts where we talk about that whole aspect of policing. but another website took that picture and made a meme out of it and it was absolutely hilarious. I was getting texts that whole night. You're famous on Instagram now or you're famous on Facebook because these guys re-posted and made a meme out of you and I just put my head in my hands and shook my head. but I laughed, it was funny. 

Ashlie: And the thing with that is we're always very cautious when it comes to the business aspect of things. when it comes to not trying to recreate something that was taken from somebody else. And I mean if you go down to the nitty gritty like what the law says when it comes to taking something like that, we could have sent them a cease and desist for that. Because it belongs to us right. We didn't take some like stock photo. That was a photo from you of you and being with anything that we put out there on social media, it comes with this unwritten understanding that anybody can have it. anybody has access to it. Are we really going to go through something like that? of course not. number one, it was funny as hell. Like if they had asked for it, we would have given it to them. And number two it actually gives you free exposure when somebody does something like that.

Clint: Exactly. And that free exposure is something that anybody who has a business or is in any type of marketing or market for a business would love that free exposure.

Ashlie: What I want to talk about next is it's really sensitive to bring this up. so I'm going to try to frame it in a way that doesn't bring on any sort of unintentional influence. But there are so many social media accounts that always post or re-post or share when there's a fallen officer. There has to be a space for that. It happens more and more often every day that we continue down this path. And with that we see it everywhere. We're a part of an endless number of groups online. Same with everybody that we're connected with through all of the other social media outlets and it's very, it's very unfortunate. Anytime something like that happens. And as a spouse of a police officer in the back of my mind there's always this space where like what if something like that ever happened. you have to come to the realization in the understanding that there is this universal reality of it. It's not just them. like it could have existed with me too. 

Clint: And I put myself in the shoes of one of those officers thinking of how I would feel with just seeing post after post after post of people sharing this, oh so prayers for this officer's family. And I think that's great that they're expressing that. but in such a public matter already and especially how we're such private people in that I wouldn't want to be broadcast all over the Internet saying, "oh guess what he just got killed in the line of duty."

Ashlie: No but I think it's important. And this is just coming from the wife if something ever happened to you, I would want people to know this is what really happened. Like Fuck the media, they're not telling you the right story because they never do in these instances and I would want that to be shared in the appropriate platforms. But in saying appropriate platforms, if your platform is about spreading positivity and sharing different tools and tactics like ours for example, I don't want to share any kind of and that is a negative in my eye. because it brings down the emotion. It gets me thinking like what if that was me, what if that was my husband. There has to be some kind of boundary, some kind of container surrounding what your business is. And in saying that what you're choosing to post and to share and I feel like if your message is let's say you're a makeup guru and your message is you know doing swatches on makeup and makeup videos all day and then something happens that touches you and then you go and you share that on your beauty channel and let's say it was the death of a dog, like that touches us all. It's not going to make sense to post that on your beauty channel. it's just not the right container for that. But then if you hear that something happened and you go into another container where you know that there are memorials for Golden Retrievers let's say and you're following that page, then you know that that's a source that you could go to if something like that happens and when you're able to really classify and secure and bracket what these types of businesses are and what it is that they share, for us we're also following pages that we know whether it's something of a positive influence or something that's going to be you know another officer down and intentionally yes we will go in and we will see what's happening in the reality of these fallen officers and also on a normal news feed for us, we try to limit or omit completely any type of negativity. because we want to see things that are spreading awareness. So let's say it was suicide prevention or limiting police brutality in the eyes of community policing or you know something more productive and proactive in terms of that. not necessarily like this person died and this person died. because it really hits home like constantly when you're going through that feed and you're seeing that all day long.

Clint: In my perception with that is people don't do it necessarily just for to share the word or to share that that officer was killed. they do it to gain traction almost as a maybe this will get me more likes and I'm not saying all the cases or people who do that are that way. but they are undoubtedly are those people.

Ashlie: I never actually thought of that before and like that's pretty fucked up. 

Clint: Absolutely. And that's why like for me personally if that were to ever happen, I would be outraged. I mean I would be dead, but I wouldn't have to worry about that. but still it's something that people will take absolutely anything they can from you and spin it to well how can this benefit me. instead of just trying to straight out help one another in those instances and use the platforms that are in place already to kind of seek that help.

Like I wouldn't go to a PTSD platform to look for how to comb my hair. 

Ashlie: Exactly and getting back to us having not had a social media account versus us having it now for what nine or 10 months. The thing that I found that makes it work for us being so anti is social media in the beginning is having those filters and what it is that we know we want and don't want on our news feed to begin with and then implementing and re-implementing that and let's say you join a group and you start to notice that there are things on there that you don't want to see on your feed, that doesn't mean that you don't need to be a part of that group but there's other value there. It just means that Facebook has an incredible ability to allow you to edit your settings to see what it is that you can and cannot see on the norm when you first open up that page and be it law enforcement related or not this I believe can be put forward in everybody's news feed. If you're flipping on that social media account have those filters in place. understand that any kind of negativity that you're seeing and maybe you have that one friend you just constantly posts that stuff, you can put it to where it's not set up any algorithm to pop up as a first thing that you see every time you open up your Facebook let's say and when you're able to set those boundaries with regards to you and where you sit and what you want to allow into your life and then be shared within your news feed and on your page and then if you have a business on your business page, it allows you to utilize social media in a more positive way. And I know for us by doing that we had an incredibly large agency reach out to us in particular specifically based on the reason that we were posting positive influence all the time. Instead of having any kind of negativity. because it's so easy to go to different pages and see the bad things that happen. it's attractive. it's attractive whether it's somebody trying to sell something or like you said it's attractive towards getting more likes or more views on a post. But for us I don't ever want it to be that way. And as you sit there when you're able to decide what it is that you want in terms of manipulating the social media account to be something that's going to benefit your mood and your overall presence and aura as you're starting your day, going about your day so maybe check it before you go to bed then you're really able to set the guidelines for how you want to feel throughout your day and how you want your train of thought to go thereafter. And by having that ability and knowing that it's yours to decide, then you're really able to enjoy your tactical living.

Balance. Optimize. Tactics.

Enjoy Your Tactical Living.

Hit that subscribe button so that you don’t miss a day of the added value that I am dedicated to sharing with you weekly.

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Ashlie: Welcome back to another episode of tactical living by Leo warriors. I'm your host Ashlie Walton and I'm here with my co-host Clint Walton.

Clint: How are you doing.

Ashlie: For today's episode we want to talk about social media. For us we didn't even have a social media account until October of last year. Baby how come we never had social media up until then?

Clint: You know I've never cared for social media. I had Myspace back in what would that be? the late 90's early 2000's and when I was in high school.

Ashlie: For anybody under the age of 20, Myspace used to be what Facebook is. But on a much smaller caliber.

Clint: And I always believed what's funny with that is I always believed that Myspace would overrule Facebook in any way. And I was like I will never sign up for Facebook because Myspace is the best.

Ashlie: You know I was just talking about this with somebody and I don't know if you remember when we were in junior high in high school but we would have those three ring binders and we would put pictures of like all of our friends are like the coolest things for magazines in there.

Clint: The good old glamour shot go into the mall and take pictures with a feather boa wrapped around your neck.

Ashlie: Do you get a feather boa? The funny thing about that it goes deeper where if you weren't best friends with somebody anymore you would take their picture out of your binder and you would go to the mall and take pictures with a new best friend and then put it inside your binder. but then to go a step further you would get like 50 or a hundred of these printed out and then you would give them to all your friends. so all your friends would also put them inside of their binders telling everybody.

Clint: That's just like baseball card trading.

Ashlie: And it's so funny because it's like Myspace had turned that into a tangible form of it like that three-ring binder.

Clint: Myspace was the end of sharing those pictures and sharing just notes back and forth between each other in class and stuff like that. And it's funny because I doubt that even happens anymore where you write a letter to somebody and you pass it to him in class.

Ashlie: So we kind of went off on a tangent there. But going back why is it that you and I throughout the duration of our marriage. Neither one of us had ever put ourselves out there and even established any form of social media?

Clint: Well you know being in law enforcement I've always had the perception of negativity only comes from social media. I always see the negative aspects around it, but I never tried to look for the positive either. And then I also see other officers or other people getting in trouble for things that they posted. but sitting back and looking at and now while they really shouldn't have posted it in the first place. it's a bad perception of whatever agency they work for or just as a professionalism aspect. we are held in a high regard being in law enforcement and you don't want to post standing in a pair of tactical pants with your shirt off holding your AR-15 out in the desert shooting.

Ashlie: And I know for me a lot of it was the safety element of it.

We've even paid a third-party company to constantly go on and remove our name from any sources that are public where our names or pictures of us should not be placed without intent. And as the wife of a police officer it's always important for me to make sure that we're not exposing ourselves in any way that would open us up to any more vulnerability than what's already there just based on your profession and the truth is a big part of that was there was this transition during our dating period where I had an ex fiancé. And I wanted nothing to do with that ex fiancé nor did I want him to have any part of me. I didn't even want him to see a picture of you and I together. I wanted to stay as far away from that as possible. so that was also a big factor for it. We lead and still do lead very private lives and in our transition into social media, 99.99% of that was business induced. We had no choice.

Clint: And nowadays you can't do any type of business-related transactions without social media in some way. Social media has taken over the whole world of marketing and reaching out to clients and just developing a business from scratch.

Ashlie: And as you sit there if you can think of a single operational business, I don't care what it is. If you have a single one in mind that has the ability to function without any form of social media reach out to us, let us know. DM us Leo warriors on Instagram, Leo warriors Number one on Facebook. I would love to know if there is in fact a possibility of a company actually functioning without that outreach.

Clint: And I have to throw this caveat out there too is everyone who already does follow us and continues to follow us, you know we appreciate all the support that you've given us, and we love seeing the stories that you share with us. it's amazing to see what inspiring people there are out there that share their story through social media.

Ashlie: For sure. And the opposite side of that is there's so much negativity out there that we knew getting into we would see every single day on. the biggest kicker is that most of that negativity in any sort of direct targeting comes from people who choose to post shit asking for it in return. The easiest way to function on social media and the easiest way to still have an online profile with your business and even personally and still have that level of security and that level of protection is to not post the shit that you don't want people to see.

Clint: And that's where people don't completely understand. They think, "oh well if I posted no one else will see it except for who I want to see it." Well then you gave say 100 people access to that post. Now they can share that access to 100 different people and then it can go from there. The perfect instance of this here is a photo of me that we posted of me holding a little Labrador retriever and it was a cool picture and there's a funny story with that. but that will go into other podcasts where we talk about that whole aspect of policing. but another website took that picture and made a meme out of it and it was absolutely hilarious. I was getting texts that whole night. You're famous on Instagram now or you're famous on Facebook because these guys re-posted and made a meme out of you and I just put my head in my hands and shook my head. but I laughed, it was funny.

Ashlie: And the thing with that is we're always very cautious when it comes to the business aspect of things. when it comes to not trying to recreate something that was taken from somebody else. And I mean if you go down to the nitty gritty like what the law says when it comes to taking something like that, we could have sent them a cease and desist for that. Because it belongs to us right. We didn't take some like stock photo. That was a photo from you of you and being with anything that we put out there on social media, it comes with this unwritten understanding that anybody can have it. anybody has access to it. Are we really going to go through something like that? of course not. number one, it was funny as hell. Like if they had asked for it, we would have given it to them. And number two it actually gives you free exposure when somebody does something like that.

Clint: Exactly. And that free exposure is something that anybody who has a business or is in any type of marketing or market for a business would love that free exposure.

Ashlie: What I want to talk about next is it's really sensitive to bring this up. so I'm going to try to frame it in a way that doesn't bring on any sort of unintentional influence. But there are so many social media accounts that always post or re-post or share when there's a fallen officer. There has to be a space for that. It happens more and more often every day that we continue down this path. And with that we see it everywhere. We're a part of an endless number of groups online. Same with everybody that we're connected with through all of the other social media outlets and it's very, it's very unfortunate. Anytime something like that happens. And as a spouse of a police officer in the back of my mind there's always this space where like what if something like that ever happened. you have to come to the realization in the understanding that there is this universal reality of it. It's not just them. like it could have existed with me too.

Clint: And I put myself in the shoes of one of those officers thinking of how I would feel with just seeing post after post after post of people sharing this, oh so prayers for this officer's family. And I think that's great that they're expressing that. but in such a public matter already and especially how we're such private people in that I wouldn't want to be broadcast all over the Internet saying, "oh guess what he just got killed in the line of duty."

Ashlie: No but I think it's important. And this is just coming from the wife if something ever happened to you, I would want people to know this is what really happened. Like Fuck the media, they're not telling you the right story because they never do in these instances and I would want that to be shared in the appropriate platforms. But in saying appropriate platforms, if your platform is about spreading positivity and sharing different tools and tactics like ours for example, I don't want to share any kind of and that is a negative in my eye. because it brings down the emotion. It gets me thinking like what if that was me, what if that was my husband. There has to be some kind of boundary, some kind of container surrounding what your business is. And in saying that what you're choosing to post and to share and I feel like if your message is let's say you're a makeup guru and your message is you know doing swatches on makeup and makeup videos all day and then something happens that touches you and then you go and you share that on your beauty channel and let's say it was the death of a dog, like that touches us all. It's not going to make sense to post that on your beauty channel. it's just not the right container for that. But then if you hear that something happened and you go into another container where you know that there are memorials for Golden Retrievers let's say and you're following that page, then you know that that's a source that you could go to if something like that happens and when you're able to really classify and secure and bracket what these types of businesses are and what it is that they share, for us we're also following pages that we know whether it's something of a positive influence or something that's going to be you know another officer down and intentionally yes we will go in and we will see what's happening in the reality of these fallen officers and also on a normal news feed for us, we try to limit or omit completely any type of negativity. because we want to see things that are spreading awareness. So let's say it was suicide prevention or limiting police brutality in the eyes of community policing or you know something more productive and proactive in terms of that. not necessarily like this person died and this person died. because it really hits home like constantly when you're going through that feed and you're seeing that all day long.

Clint: In my perception with that is people don't do it necessarily just for to share the word or to share that that officer was killed. they do it to gain traction almost as a maybe this will get me more likes and I'm not saying all the cases or people who do that are that way. but they are undoubtedly are those people.

Ashlie: I never actually thought of that before and like that's pretty fucked up.

Clint: Absolutely. And that's why like for me personally if that were to ever happen, I would be outraged. I mean I would be dead, but I wouldn't have to worry about that. but still it's something that people will take absolutely anything they can from you and spin it to well how can this benefit me. instead of just trying to straight out help one another in those instances and use the platforms that are in place already to kind of seek that help.

Like I wouldn't go to a PTSD platform to look for how to comb my hair.

Ashlie: Exactly and getting back to us having not had a social media account versus us having it now for what nine or 10 months. The thing that I found that makes it work for us being so anti is social media in the beginning is having those filters and what it is that we know we want and don't want on our news feed to begin with and then implementing and re-implementing that and let's say you join a group and you start to notice that there are things on there that you don't want to see on your feed, that doesn't mean that you don't need to be a part of that group but there's other value there. It just means that Facebook has an incredible ability to allow you to edit your settings to see what it is that you can and cannot see on the norm when you first open up that page and be it law enforcement related or not this I believe can be put forward in everybody's news feed. If you're flipping on that social media account have those filters in place. understand that any kind of negativity that you're seeing and maybe you have that one friend you just constantly posts that stuff, you can put it to where it's not set up any algorithm to pop up as a first thing that you see every time you open up your Facebook let's say and when you're able to set those boundaries with regards to you and where you sit and what you want to allow into your life and then be shared within your news feed and on your page and then if you have a business on your business page, it allows you to utilize social media in a more positive way. And I know for us by doing that we had an incredibly large agency reach out to us in particular specifically based on the reason that we were posting positive influence all the time. Instead of having any kind of negativity. because it's so easy to go to different pages and see the bad things that happen. it's attractive. it's attractive whether it's somebody trying to sell something or like you said it's attractive towards getting more likes or more views on a post. But for us I don't ever want it to be that way. And as you sit there when you're able to decide what it is that you want in terms of manipulating the social media account to be something that's going to benefit your mood and your overall presence and aura as you're starting your day, going about your day so maybe check it before you go to bed then you're really able to set the guidelines for how you want to feel throughout your day and how you want your train of thought to go thereafter. And by having that ability and knowing that it's yours to decide, then you're really able to enjoy your tactical living.

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Ashlie: Welcome back to Tactical Living by Leo Worriers. I'm your host Ashlie Walton and I’m here with my co-host Clint Walton. 

Clint: how are you doing?

Ashlie: Today's episode we're going to dive into a topic we see on the news almost nightly. And that is police brutality. And baby I want to talk about police brutality. The connotation portrayed on the media. Be it truthful or be it biased, and a lot of the times fabricated. And how that affects community policing.

Clint: You know around the topic of community policing in itself it makes it really hard when we're already we're fighting that uphill battle when it comes to trying to repair and create new relationships involved around the police in whichever community you may work for. And especially when you're in an environment where you already have a stigma about you where kids are raised to think that the police are bad. All they do is arrest you and just go around beating people for absolutely no reason.

Ashlie: So is it okay if we maybe start from the beginning a little bit. So let's talk about when we were kids and our view of law enforcement. For me I remember the only time actually I can recall two times where we ever had to call the police for anything. One of them was an instance where my brother's bike got stolen and I remember the officer coming to the house, he filed the report. He was very welcoming; we were really comfortable when he came there but also had a pretty high level of authority towards him. We knew that there was this respect boundary and I was probably 7 or 8 at the time. And another instance I can think of was when my mom and I were at the grocery store and she took me to the bathroom and I think I was probably 9 years old at the time and it was one of those ages where I wanted to be a big girl. And my mom let me go into the bathroom by myself. And it was just a single stall bathroom. So she was waiting out right outside the door. And I sat down to go pee and I looked on to the side of me and I saw something falling down and I look on the floor and it was like watered up toilet paper. And I’m like that was strange and I’m a little girl I’m like going pee midstream and I didn't think of looking up. But it happened again, and I think this time it brushed my shoulder or maybe even my arm and that's what caused me to look up and kind of behind me where the toilet was like all the plumbing and things like that I guess would be. And when I look up, I see there was a hole. And what I thought at the very naive age of eight or nine was a finger sticking out of the hole and I got so scared. It was probably my first time being allowed to go into the bathroom by myself. And I remember I was still like dribbling pee, but I had to like to pull my pants and go running out to my mom and she was right outside the door. She was really upset immediately and asking me what the matter and I had told her there was like somebody sticking their finger out of a hole from the bathroom that was adjacent to the one that I was in. And I guess the man's and the woman's restrooms were right next to each other separated by this wall. And I remember my mom getting so so upset and me not knowing at the time but now as an adult understanding that it wasn't a finger. There was a man in the bathroom next to me and he had stuck his penis through this hole in the door or I’m sorry the wall. And that's what I saw. And my brother worked there at the time. My mom only shopped at that grocery store, so she knew everybody there. And the manager came, they found the guy that was in the bathroom and they blocked him in. I guess he was a transient apparently. My dad got off work shortly after that. He got home from work and I remember my mom was like crying she was so upset we had gotten home and she's like pleading with my dad to not go back to where the grocery store was because she didn't want anything to happen. And apparently the manager and my brother had like held this guy there until my dad came and my dad went there. And the story I am told was that he beat the shit out of this guy for exposing himself to his daughter and the police were called and nothing ever happened to my dad. I think it was probably a father who could relate to what had happened and sure times are different now and maybe you know things would have been different in terms of any kind of charges that would have been filed against my dad for something like that happening. But as you sit there if you are a parent, I’m sure you can relate to a situation like that in how grateful you would have been for the officers understanding for a situation like that.

Clint: Yeah. Can you only imagine if that officer just immediately went and handcuffed your dad and started taking the approach of you know well you violated the law? So I’m going to have to take enforcement action on it compared to really looking at the bigger picture of it. Now like you said the times have changed recently, notions a reason over the years and things would be handled the different way but it doesn't mean your dad would necessarily go to jail or anything. But that approach that that officer took was one of building a relationship with your family. And not only that but also the manager of the store. And I’m sure he appreciated knowing that law enforcement was there and present and understanding for the community as well as being a father and bringing yourself down to that level of being human which is something we try to voice as much as we can in our own coaching practice. You know as a police officer there is a human behind that badge. There is a real life that exists outside of putting on that uniform 

Clint: Oh absolutely. And there is a lot of us who you know we have huge hearts. And that's why we do what we do. We want to help the community we work for. We want to build those bridges. We want to show that we're more than just people who go out and arrest other people. 

Ashlie: So then let's fast forward a little bit. I'm not this 9-year-old girl anymore. And things start to happen in the world. 9/11 happened when I was in ninth grade. Even going back to the point of eleven years ago when we got married, pone week, actually it wasn't even a week. We got married on a Saturday and the Monday after we got married you started the police academy.

Clint: Happy honeymoon.

Ashlie: Yeah. That was three years later. But even at that place in time the perception of law enforcement to you as somebody who was not a police officer yet is so far from where we perceive law enforcement today. So talk to me about what transpired from your point of view during these last eleven years.

Clint: You know there's so many instances that's changed policing throughout just my career in law enforcement.\whether it's the localized terrorist attacks, whether it's active shooters in schools or the severe incidents of protests against police brutality or just citizens and self not trusting the police. There's a level of respect to that used to be there and like you're saying is growing up there was a level of respect even if you've never had any contact with law enforcement. But that just comes from your being raised with having your parents instill in you, you know respect your elders and people of authority you need to, yes sir, no ma'am that mentality. You have to approach all situations. Those officers don't necessarily deem that as necessary. But when that happens well that's a really respectful kid or adult and we should be doing that not just with law enforcement and just with everybody.

Ashlie: Well for sure we absolutely should. And we see the repercussions in our daily life of not acting in a civil way.

Whether that is I mean in the American culture especially and we've been fortunate enough to travel to so many different countries to where we can compare that. But for the American culture its customary for us to say "hi good morning, how are you? Fine how are you." it's just a matter of okay now we've established this pleasant foundation to conduct business or place an order at a restaurant or I don't know maybe you just waited two hours in line at the DMV like name something.

Clint: And you know I think even taking that a step further as a human being when you ask someone how are they, give them a second to respond and just allow them to tell you how they're doing. That's one way I’ve used every day just to build that bridge to ask people really what's going on and let them start opening up within my normal life or as a police officer and every time I’ve done that I’ve built relationships throughout the whole community that is then life changing in so many ways.

Ashlie: And it's important to touch on that because I remember as a kid in school, we would constantly have police presence. They would come to our assemblies. They would always be there you know just showcasing the positive imagery of call us if you need us, like we were taught how to dial 911. We were taught when we were never supposed to dial 911 and in my opinion, what’s happened incidentally between the time you became a police officer and the advances in technology coincidingly, you're everywhere. You can't hide from it.  And it's not showcasing this positive let's give an elementary school child a sticker and a pencil and then show them that police are good. Media can't sell that. So in the advancement of technology you also have media capitalizing on that. And every single view, every single recording it's always turned in. So if I record something, I mean you know somebody who took pictures actually essentially stole pictures of Britney spears and pawned them off to capitalize on them.  The photos don't mean much nowadays. But having that raw material you know that real footage is what sells. So you not only have the media hiring people to go out and just capture all the stuff that will sell. It's not going to sell if you help a little girl learn how to ride a bike when she's getting her training wheels taken off. But if you catch the wrong view of a hostile situation to where there's few instances of excessive use of force that are actually validated but they don't follow up on that ever in the media. And having that one view that showed that one aspect you know with a car blocking what actually happened and then the viewer can just pay witness to this high action thing that they perceive as being truthful and being reality and then that random person that took the shot gets to turn it into you know TMC or whatever news source, whatever outlet will pay them the most for that  video. That's all that they care about. It's all that matters.

Clint: It's the almighty dollar and that stigma around that eye-catching news story. 

Ashlie: And then I believe it creates this negative spiral whereas a citizen or as a very manipulee child with a mind that's growing and developing, when they're seeing this negative association with law enforcement could there be this hesitation when they actually need to call the police. Are they going to second guess whether or not they should call for help when they need help? And hey guess what if you don't like the police in your area it's not like you have a second choice and you can go and call a different nine one one line. It doesn't work that way. 

Clint: Yeah you don't get to pick what police officer you want to respond to your house unfortunately. And you know kids they're intimidated to talk to police in general anymore just based off of that stigma that's out there and they could have seen something horrible that they should have never seen but they're scared to even tell us about it to where we can go out and take an action off of it.

Ashlie: And to be honest this is not just about community policing. This is with any type of industry. There are good and bad no matter where you work. But there is also like the factual hardcore this is the reality of things because we're behind the scenes and we see the footage, we see the truth. We're not just looking at this filtered subject that sells like media. And when you're able to take a step back and start to analyze and really dig into the research and the validity of the facts behind whatever it is that you're seeing that sparks interest/ you see a video expressing police brutality on social media. Okay wow! That triggered something in you. But instead of leaving it at that why don't you go and do something of value like further investigating and reading and exploring even call to get more information about whatever it is that you're seeking. Interview people if you want to if you were that concerned about it to where you want to go and make a fuss about it and repost it and then put your own spin and twist on things then at least have the decency as a human being to have some kind of education and facts to back that up. And I’ll be completely honest with you but also don't be an idiot in the eyes of the people that actually know what happened by saying oh look it, I found this thing and can you believe that so-and-so did this based on a simple post that you decided to just press a button on to read posts. Like what is that? What does that mean? And when you have something and I don't care if it's something positive or negative related to law enforcement related to your industry, but anything that sparks that's something it pings that you in some way so much so that you feel the ability to just have to share it with somebody take a second and do a little bit of research and then share that post. But back it from 0 and then check out this article that I read from so-and-so fill in the blank with a valid a publication that actually makes you look intelligent and worthy of what it is that you're talking about. And when you're able to share your feelings and share any of those things that ping at you by backing it up with a valid resource it'll make people look at you in a completely different way. It will give you a new sense of actual knowledge and you'll really be able to enjoy your tactical living.

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