How To Deal With Threatening People in Public - Jocko Willink

what's the best way to handle awful random people say a bunch of intimidating thugs on a bus or a violent scary drunk person well and there's even more awful random people out there that you might need to look out for I think this is a you know obviously you've got people that are appointed criminals that are coming after you you've got terrorists that might be coming after you or just trying to do random acts of mass violence so those are those are a particular type I think that this is a question directed for more of

something that could easily happen yeah to be right random people that are being jerks or thugs or people that are drunk or high or whatever well it's okay so obviously what do we want to do we want to be prepared so to start with you want to be in really good physical condition so I mean you want to work out you want to be ready to handle yourself physically um you want to know how to fight that means you need to train jujitsu boxing Muay Thai wrestling you if you're in a high crime area you're

in a high threat area and you think this stuff is really gonna happen out there then guess what you need to get a firearm you need to learn how to shoot a firearm you need to train with the firearm you need to understand the ramifications of utilizing a firearm and then you need to carry it so you can protect yourself and those same things go if you decide you're going to carry any kind of weapon whether it's pepper spray or a mace or an ASP or a knife anything that you're gonna carry you better know

what you're doing you need to prepare with it so that's what you need to do to be prepared okay that's yeah that's what in Annie you don't said this before I set it on the Sam Harris podcast if you you if you do these things if you work on your physical condition if you work on your fighting if you work on your shooting if you work on your your weapon skills and you never have to use them great I I will still say it has not been wasted it has been time that has made you

a better person it's been proposed discipline on you it's gotten you better physical conditioning it's just good for you mm-hmm so regardless you should be training in these type of situations now once you get to this type of situation first of all how did you get that because we need to have situational awareness right how are you not paying attention to what's going on around you you need to pay attention to what's going on around you and then you watch for these scenarios that could unfold and you avoid them period so so how are you

getting stuck on a bus with a bunch of maniacs right there's something when they got on you got off that's a real simple right or you go to get on and you see these knuckleheads you walk right back off I mean that's that's pretty easy and all there's a bunch of knuckleheads walking down the street towards you go across the street walk down the other side situational awareness oh you hear them coming up behind you cool step off across the street avoid we want to be have situational awareness that's gonna solve that should solve 99%

of your problems is being aware of your surroundings understanding your situation planning what about just simple planning like where you going when are you gonna come home you know if you took a subway into the city at night and you know you're gonna coming home late at night and you're alone and you are suspect of what's happening maybe you get an uber instead of ride in the subway it's just planning that comes into play as well to avoid these situations now if you do get caught in these situations here's a couple recommendations okay my number

one is to kind of do your best to detach from from this scenario right so you got let's say you're on a bus and there's a bunch of people acting crazy and they jumped on right after you got on and you couldn't get off in time so now you're on the bus with them I want you to detach from them so that means you're not looking at them you're not staring at them you're not being all intimidated you want to just attach just do what you would normally do you know everyone carries a phone these

days break out your phone start looking at your phone pull out your paper start looking at your paper study if you don't have either one of those two you know look outside look at the passing just just don't enter their world don't become a part of their thing that they have going on because what they want to do is they want you to make eye contact what they want you is glance over at them what they want you to do is enter their world because a lot of times these knuckleheads that they're in their own

world and you actually have to penetrate their world if you want to get in there so what you want so what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna remain I'm not gonna I'm not gonna cower though there's a difference okay because if you give the impression of you're just like cowering and scared well then there that's that's entering their world and they're they're gonna recognize that but if you just hey sitting here just doing what you'd normally doing it's not a big deal you do this all the time you don't care about them don't care

about me leave me alone that's that's where I'm going now if for whatever reason I make some kind of eye contact right now I made the eye contact I've entered their world I'm gonna go ahead give it a little head nod you know just a little just a little regular head nod like I would do with you if I saw you on the street hey you know just a little respectful little head nod and then I'm gonna go right back to what I was doing to go right back out of the world I acknowledge their

world I'm not gonna give a bunch of I'm not gonna look scared but I'm not gonna look aggressive I'm just gonna be respectful a little head nod you know hope you having a good night um and then go go back to your business again I just want to detach from them that's my attitude isn't wanted attached for them and this avoids them saying you know like if they're looking at you and you don't look back or or they're just like bearing down on you hey hey why aren't you why you ignoring me or whatever you

too cool for me or something like that so sometimes you look a little head nod it's all good if if now if they do start now see I'm escalating this so they're escalating it so now if they do start to escalate this thing in like like you know were you looking at or one of those things it's just again what you're trying to do is you're trying to de-escalate without being appearing one more you know so maybe it's just you know hey no issue here you know just something simple like that no I'm good like

what are you doing just riding the bus home you know what I mean just real matter-of-fact just didn't go try and get back but you know we might want to just even try and and and connect a little connection instead of I'm trying to go home cuz that's my pissed some people off cuz I don't have a home or their home is a bad place so what might be better than saying that is you know I just got done with work now you're just a working man right of course you might be dealing with some

of that doesn't have a job and lost their jobs so I'm saying you're not gonna come up with a grip but my point here is just you're just gonna try and make simple non confrontational statements that don't give them anything to grab on to because that's what they want they want something they they just want something to grab on to you know that's what they're looking for so you don't want to let that happen now things can still continue to escalate you know you get someone that's determined to be a jerk or determined to be

hostile return be aggressive now I'll tell you that if you train then you work out and you do jujitsu and you have skills people know it people people that are belligerents generally can tell even in a drunken state when you square off with someone or you look at someone and they have an attitude of like look I do this all the time I'm good you want to fight I'm here not saying that but just a little bit and you can tell yeah if they're real troublemakers they can tell now sometimes that's not a good thing

because that means they're gonna do the challenge you know so you got to watch out for that so I think that that's right even though on the internet it might tell it it might seem like it's telling a different story you know it's like oh guy confronts the wrong guy you know guy street thug confronts jujitsu master or something and it shows that they actually fought so it kind of seems like oh no they don't know obviously out there know they but that's air man and that's why it makes the internet so it's rare typically

yeah and this is no guarantee but I understand I could tell even before I started doing jiu-jitsu you know I could tell if somebody was ready to rhumble is like I was ready to rumble no fight training to a guy who was belligerent to me directly right Terry was there we were working and all I did was act like I knew yeah I didn't know by the way act like I knew and in front of everybody guy was like oh hey I'm sorry man it's my bad I believed a little bit bigger than me too

and he just said but I was ready to I was ready to do the best fighting I could because it was it was kind of go time at that point yeah he was like you know the kind guy where he's talking he's like yeah man I'm from Chicago and he's like rubbing against me in my face kind not like I want to fight you but just like like almost like a dog would you know and rubbing against me and then whatever you know I made like okay we're about to fight took on my jacket real

quick or whatever and um and was like all right mmm like just go just like her you're saying no just real matter calm real man oh yeah you do this all the time yep and the thing I understand that it is on right now understand and then the guy in heat surprisingly it's not like Prosser hey my bad my bad bro my dad it's not surprising because people that act like that are weak and they're insecure and they're acting on that and so when somebody stands up to them and they look at him and think

this guy might actually know how to fight yeah then that's what happens and by the way when you do train all the time you do know how to fight and then as a matter of fact you're like yeah I'll fight you yeah hold on yeah well it's it's a good feeling to know that you can handle yourself now okay so now this is this continues to escalate and you know if you just try and keep your distance from people you don't want to let them get close you don't know they got a knife you don't

know what kind of disease they you just want to keep away from you know but eventually you might not be able to back up anymore you might not be able to keep any distance watch their hands keep as much distance you can eventually you got to put your hands up in kind of a non-confrontational way to protect your face to protect the sucker punch that's coming you know you put your hands up just in a non-confrontational way up up around your head and continue to deescalate hey man I'm not here don't don't want any problems

mmm you know I'm not looking for an issue I don't know what your issue is but I don't have any issue with you I'm just trying to head home from work you know one of those things and finally if you get to a point where you have no choice well then you utilize the skills that you have you hit hard to hit fast you don't stop hiding until the threat is neutralized and then you get away and that's in order to be able to do that you know go to step 1 prepare yeah that's um

you're the 99% of situations will be avoided if you're just aware most of that most important thing yeah that's a huge deal so true yeah we would much rather have you do that because any of these situations I could go out I'm pretty well prepared for anything I could go out tonight and have some guys square off with me and as I'm getting ready to fight him so his buddy cracks me in the head with a with a bottle and kills me that could happen tonight yeah that could happen at a restaurant tonight that could

happen yeah so what am I gonna try and do try to avoid it the minute you square off with somebody you're now you're now a target for all his friends by the way I've been in some bar fights where the idiot that is being belligerent doesn't have the common sense or doesn't have the sense that he's surrounded yeah yeah by you know by my friends you know and you're just thinking you don't even you're doomed yeah so luckily the guys that I hang out with are pretty honorable people that aren't just gonna you know crush

somebody's skull but you don't always give that's no guarantee that's no guarantee there's murders every day in America and they're not planned all of them seldom are they planned it's done a Facebook I think I always get confused with the name because like a lot of people will be like hey echoes you know and ask me questions in this podcast so as well as the other podcast this podcast I don't want to be like okay he asked me but no it was yeah anyway so a guy asked me like this scenario was used at a

bar or party or something and and guys were being disrespectful to him and his wife or a girlfriend or something and then he's like I know the high road I know the right thing to do quote-unquote is to to be done with it you know to leave the situation but when you leave you feel like a little you know like you wussed out and that's really powerful feeling that you don't want so like what do you do man how do you just how do you reconcile late or should I fire under certain circumstance for the

honor kind of thing like what's the thing and so I've always really looked at it this way especially if you're kind of like if you have mental can kind of control over the situation where you can be like okay am I gonna fight this guy or what so when you choose to engage you wanna fight the guy you know what you said the wrong thing to me and I'm gonna square off for it to my life or whatever you know so I'm gonna choose to square off now all you did use you took on all

the potential results of that you took all that on even if you win the fight you get arrested like everything as opposed to taking on all the potential results probable you know it would that come with not engaging which include going home safe your wife safe everybody safe wake up tomorrow just like you would the other day and then compare that to jail I'm injured in some way I can't you know I can function less tomorrow if I didn't make it home tomorrow you know death all this stuff when you kind of consider the outcomes

that you want and the reason you're gonna make one decision over the other it kind of it comes real clear even though at the time it's so powerful because you're like oh man I don't know what's out in front of everybody or my wife you know it's my honor in front of my wife bye your wife wants you to leave or fight whoo-hoo like I'm so proud of him you know know your kids are like I'm glad you're home dad ya know that's another thing that comes with I think with training all the time is

we all know where we stand yeah like I mean if the if there's a person that's gonna beat me in a bar fight I know him like he it's a famous fighter it's a famous jiu-jitsu player it's someone that is a known public figure that is known for flighty that's like who's gonna give if it's a civilian that doesn't train I mean they don't they're not gonna stand a chance now if for the French Open of course you're not some issues well but yes yes the the best thing to do is avoid but does your

wife when your wife knows that you train every day that you get after it every day that you're physically fit physically strong and knows that you could destroy that person does she look down on you when you walk out of there no she's like well I'm glad I married an actual man instead of an idiot right and it's not did that big overdue like hey bro if you want to fight here come to this gym I'll be there tomorrow at ten o'clock yeah it's will go yeah I'm not gonna fight out here and get arrested

man you're in sued by you after you're after I put you to sleep and then I make it so you can't use your arms anymore yes forever yes and even that I mean really let's really admit it even doing that like hey you want to fight I do want to fight you right but I you know I'm a smart fighter so even that that's like exactly as far as moves go although hey look I'm not if someone does that and post it on the internet or something like that or come on let's face it we

don't want to see that a part of us wants to see that yeah you see the bully get beat up yeah but really at the end of the day that's not the decision the decision is it you're right because it goes back when I said that earlier question if you're secure in your manhood yeah then it's not that big of a deal to go dude you're drunk and carry on I'm out of here with my wife we're gonna go back to a house and carry on with our lives like normal people yeah you can find

another person to get in a drunk fight with and end up in jail let me ask you this you can be honest even as a full-grown secure man if you found yourself in that scenario and you're like not me and my wife we're gonna go home there's still a small party of course oh well especially when you enjoy fighting yeah I mean fighting that's fun and actually you know one of the guys at the gym who's uh brown belt Mike he hasn't trained much when you're there anyways yeah Mike yeah dude he's usually goes in

the morning yeah he's usually there anyway anyways um he had somebody like say something to know somebody somebody like smacked his girlfriend's ass like what like he brought his girlfriend into the bar yeah and he does more Thai of course and he's a badass dude he walks in the bar and this guy just straight-up just BAM slaps his girlfriend's ass and he like turned around boom one two to the head dropped the guy knee to the face out I was like yep boom got arrested he paid eight thousand dollars or something and did like 72

hours in jail I mean it was it was legit like any and he and he talks about it I mean just to show you like it differently and that's why like his attitude you know I talked about he's like yeah you know the guy crossed the line and I had to put him down yeah it was like yeah okay yeah and that's that's an awesome story by the way it gives me like a real like but yeah but let's face it though that wasn't the right move as far as before you do it yeah I

mean it you're right because we don't know what could have happened yes we don't we know what the actual outcome was and it it was like eight thousand dollars you know and his wife girlfriend girlfriend okay just his girlfriend don't mess with Mike's girl man well I'm just saying if you have a wife and then on top of it if you have like a kids the $8,000 oh it seems more detrimental yeah that's true but you know so I'm saying this is why you treat people with respect yeah you know because otherwise you never know

who you're messing with and Mike doesn't look like he's a big intimidating guy by any chance what does he weigh 170 I'm thinking of a different guy I realize it but what Mike's 170 he's tough it he's a tough bastard too I mean on the mat he's tough but he's like 170 and you know what he's a brown belt in jujitsu really good with Aggie and he wrestled like he dressed in high school so yeah a nice any train more time so he's just a tough dude yeah and you don't know who you're messing with

and boom but the interesting thing is and you know this I know this when you make eye contact with another person in a like that you already know if they train or not you're like oh this guy trains for sure I'm in for it you know this is gonna be it's gonna be on you know that's awareness from the training yep but still awesome story don't do that yeah yeah I know don't do what Mike did yeah but Mike keep it up no Mike don't do it again yeah don't mess with Mike's girl