Tactical Living

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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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 and husband Clint Walton.

Clint: How are you doing. 

Ashlie: For today's episode just sit back relax and enjoy the content. And today is a little bit special because it is my husband's birthday. Happy birthday baby. 

Clint: Thank you.

Ashlie: And I thought it would be great if we can just do an overview for our listeners to showcase a little bit about where you were this time last year versus where you're at today over all quadrants of your life. So can you talk to us a little bit about that.

Clint: So in looking at it this time last year. I was, I weighed about two hundred and eighty-five pounds. I had you know I came home every day. I just turned on the tv I zoned out and watched tv. I didn't give you attention that you needed. I didn't feel a spiritual connection that I ever thought I needed or desired. And my relationships with friends and family were lacking if not gone completely. So from then to now I’ve lost over seventy-five pounds. I have the want and desire to just be with you all the time and it makes me so happy to come home to you every day. And through meditation, through just connecting with my own spirituality it has enlightened me in so many ways to where I feel grounded and connected to everything that's going around me in this world. And it's an amazing feeling and you know just the other day we're talking about we're sitting in a restaurant and there's a few people in there and you really are aware of what's going on around you. But when more and more people go into that restaurant the noise, the chatter is just pipes up and it gets overwhelming almost because you feel connected with everything that's going on in that instance. But I have to say one of the biggest things for me is the my own self it's acceptance in how I feel about myself. You know I’ve struggled with my weight and fitness aspects since high school. I mean I’ve fluctuated from 300 plus pounds down to 220 back up to 280 and that's been kind of my uphill battle my whole life. And until I really found what worked for me by not even looking at diet or exercise as what I needed to do in respect to all the fat diets that are out there and just really identifying not eating anything for myself unless it was giving me something was life changing and there are times still where you know I kind of fall back into old habits and just eat what I want or eat too much or don't feel like working out. But I’ve come to the fact of accepting those days and moving on from them and just working harder the next time around. 

Ashlie: I'm so proud of you.  

Clint: Thank you.

Ashlie: I can't say that to you enough and to watch this transformation in what's really been even less than a year has just been so humbling to not only pay witness to but to also go along the journey with you. If you were to talk to yourself a year ago would you have believed that you could be to this place that you're out right now?

Clint: Absolutely not. I would have told myself that there is no way you could do that. I would have filled myself with self-doubt and not pushed myself to strive to what I truly wanted to be. Now I’ve really, I’ve exceeded all the goals I had set when I first started this journey and now, I set my goals higher and I set them even bigger than they ever have been. So if I could talk to myself then I would say, you just need to find the place or find what you need to find to make that change because that's honestly what it took for me to change that.  

Ashlie: And I think you really hit the nail on the head because it comes down to your why. So I think you really solidified your purpose and understood the reasons why you wanted to do these things that you wanted to do in your life. And then you let that be a driving factor for you throughout the whole journey.

Clint: Yeah. And if I didn't have my own why as to doing it, I would have never reached any of the goals that I set. You know a lot of us set goals for anything that we want to do in life and some people say well set the goals low so you know you can achieve them. But I say absolutely the opposite. Set them so high so you have to work harder to achieve. 

Ashlie: We like to 10x that shit.  

Clint: Exactly. 

Ashlie: Nice grant cardom plug in right. So then another question baby is if we can go back then a year ago and then talk to yourself a year ago. In retrospect overlooking everything that's happened, what advice would you give to yourself? 

Clint: I would just say that you know the hard times are over and you have nothing but positive things coming your way. So just focus on that. Focus on making yourself happy so you then can turn into making other people happy. Because I’m a strong believer in this is how can you take care of somebody else if you can't even take care of yourself. That's huge. If you're unhappy with any aspect around your life at all how can you go and preach to somebody to change theirs. How can you go out and judge people on how they live their lives?  

Ashlie: And the struggle is real right there. This is something that you and I had great discussion over for probably the past two or three days now. When it comes to people finding the need to interject their own thoughts and opinions on shit that they don't have any experience with. 

Clint: The understanding for anyone is it's all perception and everybody has their own perception when it comes into life what other people say. And unfortunately a lot of people especially in the social media aspect spin everything in such a negative way and for us we want to change that negative spin to everything. Why do we have to be so negative about things? Why does it always have to be about me me me me me when in all honesty it should be about. Well that's great that you've achieved that. How about looking at it this way or finding out why you're so unhappy about a certain situation that whether you see a post online that someone said something you don't agree with or just figuring out why you feel the way you do about that certain situation. 

Ashlie: Absolutely and we've been very fortunate to both go through training with dr. Mark x atkinson at the human potential institute and one of the things that he stresses the most is learning how to control and be the CEO of your own mind. And it wasn't until this was really spelt out for me that I understood the importance of not letting somebody who's just spitting out negativity based on their own dissatisfaction alter the way that you feel internally. 

Clint: Because in all honesty when you think about it what does that do for you?

Ashlie: It pisses you off.

Clint: It makes you feel more negative about that situation. And it probably doesn't affect that person at all.  

Ashlie: Yeah absolutely. So talk to me about how some of that emotional building and really the training that we've gotten through this journey educationally has played a role in how you view life now, you view your body, you view how you interject into the world. 

Clint: See and that's something that is just super deep that goes into you. For me personally it's and for a lot of people I know you create this story in your head about how things are supposed to be. If someone says something to you, you take your interpretation of it and then you just start spinning it creating this bigger and bigger story whether it's negative or positive. Unfortunately most the time it is negative, and you create this completely false story around whatever situation it may be. And for me personally I’ve created these stories about who I’m supposed to be, what I’m supposed to believe in. And there's nothing wrong with me in doing that. But it's coming to the awareness of I was raised a certain way to believe certain things to live life the way I thought I was supposed to live it. 

Ashlie: I just want to interject here really quick because this in no way means that we discredit our parents for raising us the way that they did. 

Clint: Absolutely not. 

Ashlie: It's just a matter of coming to the realization that you have the ability to choose for yourself and you don't have to follow the same constraints and guidelines based on the way that you were raised. 

Clint: And that goes into such a huge topic. Whether it's gay marriage, whether it's a hot topic right now is the abortion clinics being forced to be closed down everywhere. All those are personal beliefs that everyone has either they base their judgments off of whether they've been born and raised in that environment or something happens throughout their life where they formed a different conclusion on. And whatever your opinion is on any of those circumstances, that's fine. But make your own decision when it comes to those. And that's what I’m getting at with everything I’m saying it's you have the right to choose what you want out of your life. Whether you're gay, straight, transgender you're for or against abortions. You're Christian or Muslim, you are Buddhist whatever it maybe you have the right to choose. We live in the greatest nation in the entire world and we've been given that right. So utilize it and don't infringe upon other people's rights because you disagree with it. 

Ashlie: I can't even top it off there. You took it home baby. I love everything about that. I am a proponent of it. I believe in everybody developing their own mindset in their own train of thought and understanding that it was their god given right whatever god means to you to have the ability to make that change and to believe in yourself with such validity that you know that that change is possible no matter how uncomfortable, how painful it might be and when you're able to really embody that and you're able to take those and know that they're tools that you're always going to have in your arsenal to develop and build upon, 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 and husband Clint Walton.

Clint: How are you doing. 

Ashlie: For today's episode just sit back relax and enjoy the content. And today is a little bit special because it is my husband's birthday. Happy birthday baby. 

Clint: Thank you.

Ashlie: And I thought it would be great if we can just do an overview for our listeners to showcase a little bit about where you were this time last year versus where you're at today over all quadrants of your life. So can you talk to us a little bit about that.

Clint: So in looking at it this time last year. I was, I weighed about two hundred and eighty-five pounds. I had you know I came home every day. I just turned on the tv I zoned out and watched tv. I didn't give you attention that you needed. I didn't feel a spiritual connection that I ever thought I needed or desired. And my relationships with friends and family were lacking if not gone completely. So from then to now I've lost over seventy-five pounds. I have the want and desire to just be with you all the time and it makes me so happy to come home to you every day. And through meditation, through just connecting with my own spirituality it has enlightened me in so many ways to where I feel grounded and connected to everything that's going around me in this world. And it's an amazing feeling and you know just the other day we're talking about we're sitting in a restaurant and there's a few people in there and you really are aware of what's going on around you. But when more and more people go into that restaurant the noise, the chatter is just pipes up and it gets overwhelming almost because you feel connected with everything that's going on in that instance. But I have to say one of the biggest things for me is the my own self it's acceptance in how I feel about myself. You know I've struggled with my weight and fitness aspects since high school. I mean I've fluctuated from 300 plus pounds down to 220 back up to 280 and that's been kind of my uphill battle my whole life. And until I really found what worked for me by not even looking at diet or exercise as what I needed to do in respect to all the fat diets that are out there and just really identifying not eating anything for myself unless it was giving me something was life changing and there are times still where you know I kind of fall back into old habits and just eat what I want or eat too much or don't feel like working out. But I've come to the fact of accepting those days and moving on from them and just working harder the next time around. 

Ashlie: I'm so proud of you.  

Clint: Thank you.

Ashlie: I can't say that to you enough and to watch this transformation in what's really been even less than a year has just been so humbling to not only pay witness to but to also go along the journey with you. If you were to talk to yourself a year ago would you have believed that you could be to this place that you're out right now?

Clint: Absolutely not. I would have told myself that there is no way you could do that. I would have filled myself with self-doubt and not pushed myself to strive to what I truly wanted to be. Now I've really, I've exceeded all the goals I had set when I first started this journey and now, I set my goals higher and I set them even bigger than they ever have been. So if I could talk to myself then I would say, you just need to find the place or find what you need to find to make that change because that's honestly what it took for me to change that.  

Ashlie: And I think you really hit the nail on the head because it comes down to your why. So I think you really solidified your purpose and understood the reasons why you wanted to do these things that you wanted to do in your life. And then you let that be a driving factor for you throughout the whole journey.

Clint: Yeah. And if I didn't have my own why as to doing it, I would have never reached any of the goals that I set. You know a lot of us set goals for anything that we want to do in life and some people say well set the goals low so you know you can achieve them. But I say absolutely the opposite. Set them so high so you have to work harder to achieve. 

Ashlie: We like to 10x that shit.  

Clint: Exactly. 

Ashlie: Nice grant cardom plug in right. So then another question baby is if we can go back then a year ago and then talk to yourself a year ago. In retrospect overlooking everything that's happened, what advice would you give to yourself? 

Clint: I would just say that you know the hard times are over and you have nothing but positive things coming your way. So just focus on that. Focus on making yourself happy so you then can turn into making other people happy. Because I'm a strong believer in this is how can you take care of somebody else if you can't even take care of yourself. That's huge. If you're unhappy with any aspect around your life at all how can you go and preach to somebody to change theirs. How can you go out and judge people on how they live their lives?  

Ashlie: And the struggle is real right there. This is something that you and I had great discussion over for probably the past two or three days now. When it comes to people finding the need to interject their own thoughts and opinions on shit that they don't have any experience with. 

Clint: The understanding for anyone is it's all perception and everybody has their own perception when it comes into life what other people say. And unfortunately a lot of people especially in the social media aspect spin everything in such a negative way and for us we want to change that negative spin to everything. Why do we have to be so negative about things? Why does it always have to be about me me me me me when in all honesty it should be about. Well that's great that you've achieved that. How about looking at it this way or finding out why you're so unhappy about a certain situation that whether you see a post online that someone said something you don't agree with or just figuring out why you feel the way you do about that certain situation. 

Ashlie: Absolutely and we've been very fortunate to both go through training with dr. Mark x atkinson at the human potential institute and one of the things that he stresses the most is learning how to control and be the CEO of your own mind. And it wasn't until this was really spelt out for me that I understood the importance of not letting somebody who's just spitting out negativity based on their own dissatisfaction alter the way that you feel internally. 

Clint: Because in all honesty when you think about it what does that do for you?

Ashlie: It pisses you off.

Clint: It makes you feel more negative about that situation. And it probably doesn't affect that person at all.  

Ashlie: Yeah absolutely. So talk to me about how some of that emotional building and really the training that we've gotten through this journey educationally has played a role in how you view life now, you view your body, you view how you interject into the world. 

Clint: See and that's something that is just super deep that goes into you. For me personally it's and for a lot of people I know you create this story in your head about how things are supposed to be. If someone says something to you, you take your interpretation of it and then you just start spinning it creating this bigger and bigger story whether it's negative or positive. Unfortunately most the time it is negative, and you create this completely false story around whatever situation it may be. And for me personally I've created these stories about who I'm supposed to be, what I'm supposed to believe in. And there's nothing wrong with me in doing that. But it's coming to the awareness of I was raised a certain way to believe certain things to live life the way I thought I was supposed to live it. 

Ashlie: I just want to interject here really quick because this in no way means that we discredit our parents for raising us the way that they did. 

Clint: Absolutely not. 

Ashlie: It's just a matter of coming to the realization that you have the ability to choose for yourself and you don't have to follow the same constraints and guidelines based on the way that you were raised. 

Clint: And that goes into such a huge topic. Whether it's gay marriage, whether it's a hot topic right now is the abortion clinics being forced to be closed down everywhere. All those are personal beliefs that everyone has either they base their judgments off of whether they've been born and raised in that environment or something happens throughout their life where they formed a different conclusion on. And whatever your opinion is on any of those circumstances, that's fine. But make your own decision when it comes to those. And that's what I'm getting at with everything I'm saying it's you have the right to choose what you want out of your life. Whether you're gay, straight, transgender you're for or against abortions. You're Christian or Muslim, you are Buddhist whatever it maybe you have the right to choose. We live in the greatest nation in the entire world and we've been given that right. So utilize it and don't infringe upon other people's rights because you disagree with it. 

Ashlie: I can't even top it off there. You took it home baby. I love everything about that. I am a proponent of it. I believe in everybody developing their own mindset in their own train of thought and understanding that it was their god given right whatever god means to you to have the ability to make that change and to believe in yourself with such validity that you know that that change is possible no matter how uncomfortable, how painful it might be and when you're able to really embody that and you're able to take those and know that they're tools that you're always going to have in your arsenal to develop and build upon, 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.

Let's Connect!

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Instagram

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn

Website: www.leowarriors.com

911, what’s the nature of your emergency? 

Welcome back to another episode of tactical living by Leo Warriors. I'm your host Ashlie Walton. And today's episode we're going to talk about how the cats might have claws, but have they drink the milk. So just sit back relax and enjoy the content. Now I’m sure that many of you might be a part of Facebook groups. I know that when my husband and I started our company we became members of several Facebook groups really as a means of connecting, networking and to monitor and gauge what the conversation was. It's something we continue to do and it's something we think is very evolutionary. It's something that is important for us to be able to understand because we want to know where the pain points sit as it pertains to first responders and their spouses.

Today I was kind of prepping some of my content. I use an app called hoop sweet. And in that app, you have the ability to preschedule your posts. This saves a significant amount of time for me because I’m able to just do it all in one shot. It takes me a couple of hours and then I don't even have to worry about it for the rest of the week. Everything else for the rest of the week is really about just connecting and building relationships with people that like our page or that we're friends with. And as I’m scrolling through some content on a police wives’ group that I’m a part of on Facebook, I see that there's this wife who posted for her very first time. When you post in a group it tells you when you’re very first post was when you're in that group and this wife had posed a question. She announced that it was the very first time she was posting in the group. She was explaining that she's married to a police officer and then she goes into detail about how her husband's been working on a book and his book is derived around a lot of content that some first responders face. She did not say that all first responders face these problems. But she laid out an outline talking about issues such as substance abuse, pornography, being unfaithful. And she reached out to the group with the intent of just asking the question of what are some of the things that your police officer, your spouse has faced or struggled with or maybe some things that you can ask him about that he's aware of, that he can share with you, that you can share with me so that I can build this content with my husband and we can further explore it. Immediately she received so many comments in this thread that literally made me sick to my stomach to read. 

It was like watching a cat fight with all these cats showing their claws and I would bet that not a single one of them have ever written a book before. Now of course that does not mean that in any way do I believe that any police wife who's affiliated with these groups acts that way. I'm affiliated with these groups and I know that I do not act this way. And there was a handful of people that responded with really great suggestions and a majority of the people that did respond actually did so in a way to where they had their defenses up for some reason and it blew my mind. Because this wasn't just one catty comment.  Each of the women that were commenting on this post felt it necessary to just dig and dig into why they felt that this was a horrible topic. Some shared what a bad idea what it was because it's been done several times before. Others shared how negative this topic was to begin with. Another woman went so far as to tell this poor wife that it was a shame that this was the first post that she decided to post in the group. And the reason this blows my mind is because the further and further that I get engaged with the police wife community, I really see two sides of it. I see the women that have this defense mechanism up and that really seem like they don't have any kind of character to build on their own.

And I see the other side where there's a lot of women who are more than willing to be open minded to share support and guidance and experience wherever they can and who are just there to pose a positive presence. And sure this isn't a positive topic to talk about. Does it exist? Absolutely. Do we hope that this topic exists in fewer rather than the majority of people that are in first responder relationships, particularly police officers? Of course we do. But the reality is that we all know somebody or maybe you yourself are somebody who has struggled with some of these problems in the past if not right now I felt compelled to reach out to her directly. I felt compelled to do this because I know what it's like to be the one who's swimming against the waves, going into a group like that is not comfortable to begin with. However when you enter into it you do it with the intention of having positive support of having a place to turn to and chances are the next time that this wife feels the need to vent or she's struggling with something, she's probably not going to feel comfortable posting in that group to ask for guidance. So I reached out to her just explaining how apologetic I was for the backlash that she received in the group. And I also shared with her that I know what her and her husband are doing and that I see her. I went on to tell her that anybody who's trying to do something the correct way when putting together any new product is going to do so by diving into marketing research. You do that by posing these questions. I believe she's doing it exactly the way you're supposed to. There's one thing to have self-experience but there's another thing when you're diving into a diverse group of likeminded people who share in the same kind of lifestyle such as being a first responder and living in the home of a first responder where the dichotomy of things are unique and the uniqueness is something that ranges incredibly. And by reaching out and asking these questions undoubtably she was seeking some of those stories. She was seeking some of the dramatic struggles that first responders bring home and it just got me thinking about how the cats might have claws, but have they drink the milk? And yeah that might sound a little catty by me saying it myself. But the truth is I wonder how many of those women have written a book themselves? How many of those women have put together something brand new and that's not to discredit it, but it's just to point out the facts.

If someone were to ask me today, "Ashley what is the biggest advice and takeaway from your entire life?" I would sum it up into very simply not to take advice from somebody who's never done it before. I could say that a million times over and I can say that because of my poor judgment in taking advice from people that have not done it before based on their merit in other areas and then me falling short in the long run. It's a process.

As you sit there I’m sure you can think of many times when you've taken the advice of somebody only to regret it later on and in retrospect if you think about whether or not that individual had any kind of experience in what it was that they were mentoring you on what it was that you're supposed to do, you probably wouldn't have made the decision to take them up on their advice in the first place. It's a process. We live and we learn and by reaching out to her it's my hope that if not with a group she'll still feel comfortable to reach out to at least me if she's in need. Somebody who can relate. Somebody who understands what it's like to be the spouse of a first responder and my hope is that what you'll get from this message today is to just analyze your own life and analyze the questions that you're putting forth into the universe. Who are you directing those questions to and most importantly what kind of advice are you giving to people? And where does that advice stem from? If ever there is a way to provide somebody with advice, but then back it up by the logical reasoning as to how you learn that or experience that in the first place, that's what true advice giving is. Otherwise we're just making up a fallacy a story about why we think somebody should or should not do something and giving them our own two cents. And what does that worth? When we do that, we're able to cut out all the bullshit. We're able to be comfortable and confident enough in ourselves to be able to tell somebody I don't know that answer and even go a step further and tell them that you'll help them to discover and uncover what that answer is and when you're able to do that and you give yourself the allowance to know what your limitations are 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.

Let’s Connect!

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Email: [email protected]

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Website: www.leowarriors.com

911, what's the nature of your emergency? 

Welcome back to another episode of tactical living by Leo Warriors. I'm your host Ashlie Walton. And today's episode we're going to talk about how the cats might have claws, but have they drink the milk. So just sit back relax and enjoy the content. Now I'm sure that many of you might be a part of Facebook groups. I know that when my husband and I started our company we became members of several Facebook groups really as a means of connecting, networking and to monitor and gauge what the conversation was. It's something we continue to do and it's something we think is very evolutionary. It's something that is important for us to be able to understand because we want to know where the pain points sit as it pertains to first responders and their spouses.

Today I was kind of prepping some of my content. I use an app called hoop sweet. And in that app, you have the ability to preschedule your posts. This saves a significant amount of time for me because I'm able to just do it all in one shot. It takes me a couple of hours and then I don't even have to worry about it for the rest of the week. Everything else for the rest of the week is really about just connecting and building relationships with people that like our page or that we're friends with. And as I'm scrolling through some content on a police wives' group that I'm a part of on Facebook, I see that there's this wife who posted for her very first time. When you post in a group it tells you when you're very first post was when you're in that group and this wife had posed a question. She announced that it was the very first time she was posting in the group. She was explaining that she's married to a police officer and then she goes into detail about how her husband's been working on a book and his book is derived around a lot of content that some first responders face. She did not say that all first responders face these problems. But she laid out an outline talking about issues such as substance abuse, pornography, being unfaithful. And she reached out to the group with the intent of just asking the question of what are some of the things that your police officer, your spouse has faced or struggled with or maybe some things that you can ask him about that he's aware of, that he can share with you, that you can share with me so that I can build this content with my husband and we can further explore it. Immediately she received so many comments in this thread that literally made me sick to my stomach to read. 

It was like watching a cat fight with all these cats showing their claws and I would bet that not a single one of them have ever written a book before. Now of course that does not mean that in any way do I believe that any police wife who's affiliated with these groups acts that way. I'm affiliated with these groups and I know that I do not act this way. And there was a handful of people that responded with really great suggestions and a majority of the people that did respond actually did so in a way to where they had their defenses up for some reason and it blew my mind. Because this wasn't just one catty comment.  Each of the women that were commenting on this post felt it necessary to just dig and dig into why they felt that this was a horrible topic. Some shared what a bad idea what it was because it's been done several times before. Others shared how negative this topic was to begin with. Another woman went so far as to tell this poor wife that it was a shame that this was the first post that she decided to post in the group. And the reason this blows my mind is because the further and further that I get engaged with the police wife community, I really see two sides of it. I see the women that have this defense mechanism up and that really seem like they don't have any kind of character to build on their own.

And I see the other side where there's a lot of women who are more than willing to be open minded to share support and guidance and experience wherever they can and who are just there to pose a positive presence. And sure this isn't a positive topic to talk about. Does it exist? Absolutely. Do we hope that this topic exists in fewer rather than the majority of people that are in first responder relationships, particularly police officers? Of course we do. But the reality is that we all know somebody or maybe you yourself are somebody who has struggled with some of these problems in the past if not right now I felt compelled to reach out to her directly. I felt compelled to do this because I know what it's like to be the one who's swimming against the waves, going into a group like that is not comfortable to begin with. However when you enter into it you do it with the intention of having positive support of having a place to turn to and chances are the next time that this wife feels the need to vent or she's struggling with something, she's probably not going to feel comfortable posting in that group to ask for guidance. So I reached out to her just explaining how apologetic I was for the backlash that she received in the group. And I also shared with her that I know what her and her husband are doing and that I see her. I went on to tell her that anybody who's trying to do something the correct way when putting together any new product is going to do so by diving into marketing research. You do that by posing these questions. I believe she's doing it exactly the way you're supposed to. There's one thing to have self-experience but there's another thing when you're diving into a diverse group of likeminded people who share in the same kind of lifestyle such as being a first responder and living in the home of a first responder where the dichotomy of things are unique and the uniqueness is something that ranges incredibly. And by reaching out and asking these questions undoubtably she was seeking some of those stories. She was seeking some of the dramatic struggles that first responders bring home and it just got me thinking about how the cats might have claws, but have they drink the milk? And yeah that might sound a little catty by me saying it myself. But the truth is I wonder how many of those women have written a book themselves? How many of those women have put together something brand new and that's not to discredit it, but it's just to point out the facts.

If someone were to ask me today, "Ashley what is the biggest advice and takeaway from your entire life?" I would sum it up into very simply not to take advice from somebody who's never done it before. I could say that a million times over and I can say that because of my poor judgment in taking advice from people that have not done it before based on their merit in other areas and then me falling short in the long run. It's a process.

As you sit there I'm sure you can think of many times when you've taken the advice of somebody only to regret it later on and in retrospect if you think about whether or not that individual had any kind of experience in what it was that they were mentoring you on what it was that you're supposed to do, you probably wouldn't have made the decision to take them up on their advice in the first place. It's a process. We live and we learn and by reaching out to her it's my hope that if not with a group she'll still feel comfortable to reach out to at least me if she's in need. Somebody who can relate. Somebody who understands what it's like to be the spouse of a first responder and my hope is that what you'll get from this message today is to just analyze your own life and analyze the questions that you're putting forth into the universe. Who are you directing those questions to and most importantly what kind of advice are you giving to people? And where does that advice stem from? If ever there is a way to provide somebody with advice, but then back it up by the logical reasoning as to how you learn that or experience that in the first place, that's what true advice giving is. Otherwise we're just making up a fallacy a story about why we think somebody should or should not do something and giving them our own two cents. And what does that worth? When we do that, we're able to cut out all the bullshit. We're able to be comfortable and confident enough in ourselves to be able to tell somebody I don't know that answer and even go a step further and tell them that you'll help them to discover and uncover what that answer is and when you're able to do that and you give yourself the allowance to know what your limitations are 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.

Let's Connect!

Facebook

Instagram

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn

Website: www.leowarriors.com

Living as a LEOW (law enforcement officer wife) often means that I am along for the holidays. Easter Sunday this year was no exception. The most difficult part about being along for the holidays has always been the constant reminders from other people who just don’t get it. When I discovered the ability to set those comments aside and make adjustments to how and when we celebrate special occasions, I found that I was never missing out.

Living as a LEOW (law enforcement officer wife) often means that I am along for the holidays. Easter Sunday this year was no exception. The most difficult part about being along for the holidays has always been the constant reminders from other people who just don’t get it. When I discovered the ability to set those comments aside and make adjustments to how and when we celebrate special occasions, I found that I was never missing out.

Dr. Gary Chapman is no stranger to those who know the 5 love languages. I thought that I knew how to please my husband and myself in our marriage. It was not until I dove into the 5 love languages that I understood that love speaks differently to different people. Many of our deepest desires and levels of fulfillment stem from the way that we were raised. Do you know what your primary love language is? When you learn how you receive love and how you can give love to those around you, your entire life changes.

Dr. Gary Chapman is no stranger to those who know the 5 love languages. I thought that I knew how to please my husband and myself in our marriage. It was not until I dove into the 5 love languages that I understood that love speaks differently to different people. Many of our deepest desires and levels of fulfillment stem from the way that we were raised. Do you know what your primary love language is? When you learn how you receive love and how you can give love to those around you, your entire life changes.

Have you ever had to make a difficult decision that you knew would make people around you mad at you? There are ways to make tough decisions faster. I have found that by staying true to my values and knowing with certainty what is most important for those that I care about the most, the difficult decisions became nonnegotiable. This couldn’t have been clearer than when I was faced with the decision of having my own father reevaluated for dementia. Although some may not agree, I know that I am closest to him and have identified that something has to be done.