29 How to Escape Fear, Defend an Attack and Turn Your Mind Into a Powerful Weapon with Tony Blauer

Learning to master oneself and achieve greatness has often been the domain of martial artists. These great warriors develop skills in maximizing their potential and managing their fears. This week on the The School of Greatness we have a modern day warrior on to teach the mindset improvements one learns when studying self defense. He has been […] Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 29 with self-defense expert Tony Blower. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  What is up, greats? Hope you are doing fantastic today. I'm super pumped about this guest. His name is Tony Blower, and he is one of, if not arguably the top self-defense expert in the world. The guy's been on over, I think, 100 magazine covers on personal defense and self-defense and all the different mixed martial arts stuff, the techniques, the strategies. He's worked with military corporations, athletes, everyone in between. This guy is a guy you do not want to mess with. Let's just put it like that. You definitely don't want to try to rob him because he's probably the guy who knows how to defend himself in any situation possible.

• 1:16Lewis Howes?

  And a super cool guy. We've got to know each other over the years, actually through another guest. Some of you guys may remember Kyle Maynard on the show a while back. He introduced us at the last year's CrossFit Games. We've been reconnecting this year's games and through social media and at different events. But awesome guy and has some amazing things to share about in his two, three decades of learning about self-defense. And we're going to be talking about the importance of understanding psychology and emotional intelligence today. Also, how does one prepare themselves for a sudden attack?

• 1:55Lewis Howes?

  And a little bit about fear management. Is fear real or is it a lie that our brain tells us? Also, we're going to talk about some mental and visualization practices that anyone can use for taking their game to the next level. How all this applies to business, sports, life, and any situation that you go through. So this isn't just about teaching you self-defense strategies and how to defend yourself, but really how to manage your life for an optimal life. And I'm very pumped about this. So before we jump into this episode, I want to give a quick shout out to the fan of the week and it's on Instagram. It's Jen Su Lee. And she

• 2:38Lewis Howes?

  says she posted a picture of the treadmill and with her iPhone with a screenshot of the School of Greatness on there. And she says, "Personal best today. I know it's not great for you runners out there, but the School of Greatness pushed me to take three minutes off my last PR. Feeling accomplished." So there you have it. I guess if you're trying to get it faster, bigger, stronger, then listen to the School of Greatness and it's going to drop your PR. So I love it. Thank you so much for the picture and posting. And if you guys are listening to this, please post a picture on Instagram and tag me wherever you are in the world. Let me know what you're doing while you're listening to it. And maybe we'll give you a shout out of the week, the next episode. So with that, guys, super pumped

• 3:22Lewis Howes?

  for Tony Blower. Get ready to go to school.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  What is up everyone? We are back with another episode on the School of Greatness. And I've got one of the scariest men alive in the studio today is Tony Blower. What's up, man? Hey.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  Maybe not one of the scariest, but one of the guys I would never want to get in a fight with, that's for sure. Probably more so than like any MMA fighter, just because you know, all the tricks and tools to getting out of any fight, it seems like, or at least hurting someone really badly.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  Well, uh, you're portraying me as some sort of uh violent uh monster. Now, it, you know, self-defense and and uh sport fighting and MMA. There's relationships and correlations, all that, but I'm I'm really, I'm I'm I'm not that that type of badass.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Right, right. You're you're a soft heart and you just have a a hard mind.

• 4:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, and and you but it's it's interesting, there's a famous Marine Corps quote that said, you know, be nice to everybody, but have a plan to kill them too. You know, I don't remember. So I kind of, you know, I kind of laid back like that, but I'm always thinking about my escape.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Sure, sure. I love it. So Tony, you're like uh like the man in the personal defense world. You're like featured in over a hundred magazines and the cover of many of them. You've trained military, army, police officers, CrossFitters, MMA, entrepreneurs, everyone in between about personal defense. That's the main thing, right?

• 5:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, most most people hear about me through that word of mouth connection. So, you know, in the case of, let's say, uh, business people. Hey, we travel a lot, we got ex-Patriots, we're we're moving down here, we're opening in in Brazil, we're opening, we're in Europe. You know, what can we know? And that's usually the connection. What they find out after is uh there's a lot more to what we provide. And and basically, you know, the tenet that we follows the mind navigates the body. And then if your scar shit was unconscious or dead, it doesn't matter if I showed you some secret jujitsu move or, you know, some, you know, some pressure point that Spock doesn't even know about, right? So at the end of the day, you've got to have the uh the the mental uh fortitude, the courage,

• 5:57Speaker 02

  the mindset, and you've got to almost draw that line in the sand before confrontation. You know, you don't put your seatbelt on during an accident. You know, you decide I'm gonna wear my seatbelt, right? You know, and so uh approaching it approaches like that. But we are real excited by the fact that the system that we put together has transcended.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  You know, all these boundaries where I can work with women in a women's shelter, uh, business people, MMA fighters, uh, sport fighters, CrossFitters, there's, you know, what is it? Cause when you think about it, you know, that adaptation and that type of like, you know, crossover doesn't work for most stuff. You can't just, you can't just transcend communities. So that's, that's kind of a neat thing.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Now you talk about understanding how to uh navigate the mind to the body, is that what you said?

• 6:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, mind navigates the body. In other words, um, you know, you're, you're a fit guy, you're an athlete. You have never kind of woken up and your foot was putting on the shoe, right? You're going, hey, and you're going, what are you doing? And your, your quads say, we're going for a run, dude, you know, when are you getting up? In other words, uh, you know, people joke about muscle memory, muscle memory, and there really is no muscle memory. What there is, is there's awareness and there's your brain, your attitude, your motivation, your personal directive and your goals. Um, I didn't want to work out today. I had a crappy night's sleep last night. I had a lot of things going on. Driving up to LA to meet you today.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  Didn't know if I could, and I said, no, you're going to work out, but it wasn't my bicep or, or my hamstring that did that. And so.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Was it your muscle memory doing it? It was?

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was, it was me, my attitude.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:37Speaker 02

  Uh, and, and my mindset. So we always say, you know, the mind navigates the body. Uh, a lot, and a lot of people, I, it's, it's somewhat controversial sometimes with, you know, certain people that have bought off on this whole muscle memory.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Um, right, you know, I consider it a myth, but the bottom line is, uh, you know, you tell your body what to do and the, the habits or the, the kinetic chain or motor patterns that you create are effective or ineffective based on how you program that.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Right. Interesting. So I'm a big believer in emotional intelligence and really understanding awareness, like you said, of how you think and how you feel about certain actions or reactions that come to you. And it sounds like that's pretty much what you teach, but you teach it in a physical sense, which is really how to understand the awareness around you, what's happening, how to react to it.

• 8:25Speaker 02

  With your technique with spirit. Yeah, so you know, the the spear part spear, just for for your listeners, is an acronym for spontaneous protection, enabling accelerated response. And it's really been a two decades study of the body's physiology. And, you know, our thesis statement is, what does your body want to be prior to any training? Does that have some sort of organic protective or combative benefit to you? If not, why are you using it? Because that's what will be there at three in the morning. God forbid, you know, you're awakened by, you know, you know, a bad guy in the night. Right. But as far as going back to emotional intelligence, uh, years ago, I wrote, I think it was like nineteen ninety-three, I wrote this article for the law enforcement

• 9:09Speaker 02

  community for, uh, Caliber Press and and, uh, street survival seminars, big, big, big law enforcement training. And I wrote an article called presume compliance. And it was basically a cerebral

• 9:26Speaker 02

  kind of treatise on, you know, why bad things happen to good people in close quarter fights. Why is it? And well, it's a lack of awareness, the totality, not just situational, but the attack specific. And so, um, it's it's kind of like, you know, you know, the books, when the book comes out, what they don't teach you at the Harvard, you know, right, school of business, right? And so you got to go out there, you really, you know, what's the difference between an entrepreneur? I read the, I read something last night on Instagram, an entrepreneur, somebody who, um, you know, has decided he'll work eighty eight, eighty hours a week, so he doesn't have to work forty hours a week. Right. So for the rest of his life, he'll work eighty hours a day for a few years. You know, or or or that's just what we do. Right.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  You know, I, you know, I know that, uh, on any given day, you're up at three in the morning, thinking about your business, if you can't sleep. Exactly. But, you know, we're not watching crap on TV. Our brain, our brain doesn't, we're either sleeping or we're thinking. But the emotional element is, is everything. You know, there's a few things that are neat with respect to self-defense. And the crossover to dealing with your family, relationships with your business and stuff like that is, is huge. The, uh, the, the connection is this, there are three arsenals, there are three toolboxes that you need to, to bring to any type of situation, whether it's a street defense situation, or starting a business, or what have you.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  And they are an emotional, a psychological, and a physical toolbox. And everybody needs them, everybody has them, but they overdevelop one. They don't realize that they're, it's a tactical trinity, that they're all interconnected. And so in this article that I started talking about, uh, they were presumed compliance. I said, hey, listen, this isn't, you know, in a real fight, it's not who's right, it's who's left. And so, so we need to, you know, we need to, you know, so if you're kicking the crap out of me and I'm on the ground, and you're stomping on my head, and I go, you know, those aren't really good kicks, really, technically, you know, you're kicking me wrong, you know, that person isn't situationally aware, they're getting their ass kicked. Right. So, we talk about this, and, and the, the more elegant way to explain it is, that how

• 11:32Speaker 02

  you feel, your emotions, influence how you think, your psychology. How you think, you know, the psychology portion influences your emotions, how you feel. Both of them affect your tactics or how you move. Okay, so, uh, you know, in, in a seminar, we'll say, hey, how you think affects how you feel, how you feel affects how you think, both of them are going to dictate your tactics. So if you're a fighter, and you got a bad feeling about this fight coming up, you start to think negative thoughts, suddenly you're pulling your punches, you're, you're breathing differently. You know, if you're a businessman, and you're, you're, something's askew, and emotional, psychological, you're gonna make a bad decision, whether it's an investment, or a partner,

• 12:15Speaker 02

  or, or, you know, when to pull the plug, or when to go for it. You're not gonna have full confidence in a, a pitch, or whatever, and you're gonna fall short. Yeah, you, you know, you go in there, and, and, uh, voices quavering, you don't have all your other, and I, you know, I do that all the time, as like, as a, as a CrossFitter, uh, you know, I'll look at a weight, come on, that's heavy, what if I don't do this? And then I catch myself, hey dude, you're in the fear loop. And so we, we teach the neurocircuitry of fear, it's a big, big thing in our seminars. Um, before we teach anybody a physical move, we take them through. An emotional psychological experience.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  And we teach them a map, I call the psycho behavior and the neural circuitry fear teaches people that for every scenario, you need to have a, you need to understand, it's kind of like a personal GPS. Where am I on this map before I get to an act and actor become one? And that could be, you know, uh, I, I got asked, uh, recently, is it possible to avoid every single confrontation in your life?

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  If you chose to? And, and I said, yes, it is, but there's a difference between tactically avoiding through the intelligent use of emotion, psychology and decision making. And avoiding, cause you're scared, because if it's the latter, then what ends up happening is you're creating your own PTSD, your own post-traumatic stress disorder. Uh, I coined a new thing for the industry last year called, uh, pre-traumatic stress disorder. They'd never heard of it. I said, you guys, you know, there's, what's PTSD? You know, scholars put something in the hands, most post-traumatic stress disorder. I go, what about people worrying about shit? Oh my God, what if this happens? That's pre-traumatic. So, because that can also.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Oh, you sure?

• 13:55Speaker 02

  You know, think about that. How many people?

• 13:57Speaker 01

  Worry about it before anything ever happens.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  Well, you, you probably, it happens in self-defense, but think about how many people you know.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  In your community as a mentor, as a motivator, don't, you know, pull the trigger on things because they're worried, but they don't articulate it. So we created this, this, you know, metaphor of GPS. So you can sit there and say to yourself or say to your partner or, you know, have the, have the courage to go, holy shit, I'm in the fear loop. I'm really scared to do this right now, because if you talk about that, what'll come out of that is, hey, you shouldn't be in this business or.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 14:36Speaker 02

  You know, that's an unreal, realist or unreasonable fear. So. And you can move.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  So what is the fear loop? You, how do you recognize when you're in it? And then how do you get out of it?

• 14:46Speaker 02

  Um, if you find yourself, you know, um.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  Hiding in the corner of a bath- a bathroom stall with your thumb in your mouth.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  You're in the fear loop. Like getting dumber and dumber and you're in the fear loop. So have you noticed that? Yeah. So, so the fear loop is really subtle because we rationalize stuff. Right cognitive dissonance, we make, we make shit up. No, no, I'm okay. Hey, are you okay? Because you're biting your nails and your leg is, you know, vibrating. No, no, I'm cool. Uh, it's interesting. I, so I haven't worked with fighters, professional and amateur, just people in self-defense. Uh, like everyone has a different ritual before a fight. And some people you can't tell. And so their way to manage fear is cavalier and robust. And they're like, you know, hey, yeah, man, let's get this happening. Let's, you know. But there's just, that's just not that person's normal demeanor.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Um, so everyone's different, but the, so what I created was kind of a map that just says, this is a map for you to look at and, and see where you are. And it starts off with, um, identifying your scenario. So it's a generic map and then it goes to motivation, expectation, uh, visualization. And, and for, if someone's really interested in this, they could just Google Tony Blauer, cycle behavior. There's a bunch of stuff online that we've done. Um, a video of it. There's a JPG of the map. Uh, there's a little article on it and you just read it, understand it and then, uh, kind of reverse engineer your scenario into it. But basically we say, hey, for you to engage yourself a hundred percent committed to any scenario, you need to be motivated.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  And what we remind people is that their motivation is something you keep in your head. It's not an app on your smartphone. Uh, it's not something you keep in your pocket. Uh, and so, you know, i- in a, in a live presentation on the way to keep your motivation, we have a discussion about that.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  Where we go through the whole cycle behavior. So the next one is expectation, what are your expectations? So I can go, hey, man, let's, you're fired up. Let's go. We're gonna go for a run today, Louis. And you go, yeah, I got my new shoes on. Let's go. Where are we going? Well, I thought we'd, you know, we'd run over the canyon, back down into the valley, then loop around Burbank and you're going, whoa, whoa, whoa.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  That sounds like, how far is it? I'm going, well, that's fifteen miles, but, you know, you know, we'll just run at a slow pace. And in your head, you don't talk about this, is what if I get shin splints? What if we get mugged? What if, uh, what if I can't go that far? If I throw up? What if you throw up? What if, you know, what if my back goes out? What if, you know, it's a what if, what if? But you never talk about that. So you've got this, like, what I call, you see, unnecessary unconscious concern? Because you're not bringing up, you're not discussing. Um, sidetrack for a second, we'll come back to psycho behavior. I grew up skiing. And I was. Cross-country or down? Down. And I, I did, I did both, but I grew up, you know, so I grew up in Canada. And in Canada, you're either a hockey player or a skier. I was, I was a skier.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  And both my parents were in the Canadian Ski Patrol, high level, uh, uh, you know, VP, Nat, you know, president, like. And so I literally grew up on skis. And by the time I was thirteen, I was one of the top skiers in Canada. And people thought like, wow, this kid's going to the Olympics. I also grew up having more fear about everything that could go wrong. But I didn't have an outlet. So like, even as a kid, if I walked around a corner, I expected a bully to be there. Hmm. And so I walked around kind of with this negativity and this fear. But, you know, if you see pictures of me, you could see that, you know, that look in my eyes that, that's still there that you recognize. But there'd be like this happy, oh, Tony's laid back, he says that. But I'm always waiting for, you know, Kato and the Pink Panther to jump out.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  And so it, it doesn't surprise me and I embrace the path I'm on of, yeah, you know, like, of course I teach self-defense. Right. You know, that's my cathartic expression of, you know, how to get my shit together. Right. And I'm passionate about it, as you know. Um, so here I am, I'm thirteen years old. It's a zone race, a real big race for us. I'm at the top of the hill, one of the best skiers on the team. Where is this, Calgary? Uh, no, I'm living in Quebec. Okay. So I was not sure at all. And my coach is beside me, I already got to the bathroom like five or six times, nervous, please, right? I want a projectile vomit, I'm so nervous, like I've got butterflies in my stomach, I'm thirteen.

• 19:09Speaker 02

  It's nineteen seventy-three, there probably wasn't a book on sports psychology in nineteen seventy-three. I'm scared shitless. Yeah. My coach is rubbing my knees to keep, you know, it's howling up at the top of the hill. And he says, how do you feel, kid? And I look at him and I go, great, coach. Right? I mean, like, that's the answer. Sure. I go down. This is a giant slalom race, skip to the bottom, three gates from the bottom. I'm blazing, I catch a tip, wipeout, massive wipeout. And, you know, let's get different coaches, you know, timing you at different, you know, intervals. The guy comes up to me, hey, you okay, man? And I go, look, you ripped your binding out of your ski, good thing you didn't break anything. Hey, man, uh, bummer that you caught your tip on that gate because you're almost two seconds ahead of the guy that ultimately won the race.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  So you know this as an athlete, two seconds in a, in a giant slalom race is like a mile. It's a long time. It's a long time. And that was the story of me as an athlete. I almost won, I almost won. And so I am so fiercely focused on getting people to understand how fear afflicts performance. And I was so worried about letting down my team, letting down my parents. Um, am I really this good? How come I feel like shit if I'm this good? Right? So there's so many subtle nuances that, that, you know, I don't know if you've ever heard of Howard Gardner. He's a, you know, this is probably a decade or two, two decades old. He's a, a social science researcher, wrote a bunch of books, wrote a book called The Frames of Mind.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  And I heard him on PBS being interviewed and I'm just driving, listening to this interview and he goes, uh, he says, I believe from my research over, you know, twenty thousand people or whatever it was, that eighty percent of our motivation is derived from our expectation. And I was driving, I was like, what? And he says it again, like, like I was talking to him. We were cracking pauses and I said, what was that? You know, he goes, eighty percent of our motivation is derived from expectation. And I went back to my office, we didn't have whiteboards like the cool one you have in your office. And, and, uh, you know, so just like it was had one of those giant day planners on the desk, you know?

• 21:23Speaker 02

  So and I wrote down motivation, expectation.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  And then I wrote eighty twenty. And I said, yeah, we can be motivated. Yeah, yeah, now I'll take that fight on short notice. Who am I fighting? Right? Oh, you're fighting this guy who killed, you know, his last eleven opponents with his stare. Right? And you know, and so suddenly you're like, oh, yeah, I'll fight him. But you went from who am I fighting to? Okay, yeah, I can be ready for that. Like you did the, you know, so you've seen. You know, you just see that I want to start my own business. I want to do this, I want to do that. And then. They got quick motivation, but they don't can't sustain it. Because their unconscious expectation is not. It's not gonna work out. Why not? Well, this could be how they were brought up.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  It could be social conditioning. It could be, you know, that person goes, you'll never make it. You know, look where you're from, you're, you know, and you know, like the, the rag to riches story, right? You know, how can you? Most people don't, they don't, you know, you, you've met people that have like never even gotten on a bus outside their neighborhood. Yeah. Right? So. So you think a lot of that's belief themselves or? Yeah, it's, it's so in self-defense, if, if you're a female listening. How many women have been told you can't fight back? You're a female, you're not a strong enough athlete. More Victorian values, women can't beat men, you know, in business and fights and what? So a lot of it is, is the, the, the depth. Uh, and the hold that belief. So interesting that you brought up beliefs because how the chart goes is, you know, you start off with your scenario and you plug that in. Then you ask yourself.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  So let's make a scenario, what, what's like, uh, someone's mugging me on the street or you mean? No, let's go through the list first and then, and then reverse engineer scenario. Right? So, so how it goes is, is I got a scenario. Whatever the scenario is, I need to, it's something I need to do. Yeah. Okay, I could be go to the dentist, defend myself, start a business, you know, ask somebody out for a date. Gotcha. Does that? Anything. Am I motivated? Yes. Okay, there's that, that hot chick at the bar.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  Go ask, go talk to her, and you go, yeah, okay, hold on a second, I just need another trick. Well, you know, something in the expectation, so how goes this expectation? Visualization, and then the fear loop starts. So, you know, visualization, the fear loop is belief systems, which is interesting that you said belief. Neuroassociation, how your brain links up symbols. Then we have two, two strong acronyms for fear, false expectations, fear and real, false evidence, fear and real, true, we've seen that before. Uh, and that creates all of the components of the fear loop. The last one is the challenger threat door, and it's kind of just a metaphor for three, two, one, go. For if you're a CrossFitter, for, you know, uh, you know, on your markets that go, if you're a, right?

• 24:10Speaker 02

  So, uh, and I prefer three, two, one, go because, because go is imminent, you know? You know, you're counting down. And so, the, um, so you catch yourself in the fear loop by if you, if you have a negative expectation that just unconsciously or consciously manifests itself. It will be, it will have a visualization assigned to it. Yeah. So, you know, um, I'll go, hey, how would you like to be rich and famous? Yeah, what do I have to do? You have to work your ass off for years. And then, yeah, and then you go, oh, I thought you were just gonna give me money. Right, and so the person's tone, and now I go, what are you thinking about right now? Well, I'm just thinking about like, you know, having a beer and watching TV and doing it, right? Or what, what do I have to do? And you can tell by someone's body language and their tone.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  You know, I say to somebody, it's gonna be a lot of work, like what? As opposed to, you know, uh, what do we have to get done? Right? And so, uh, let's, let's do, let's go, come on, come on, we can't move fast enough. Right. And, uh, so there, I really believe there's like an entrepreneurial gene, you know, and, you know, obviously not literally. But somebody who's predisposed to that. Desire. Yeah, and you see it in work ethic. Yeah. You see it in, in how people figure shit out. Exactly. So, so we're in the fear loop. If you, everyone goes into the fear loop. I don't, I've never met a person who doesn't go through the fear loop. The trick is recognizing that you're in it and how. Excuse me.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  Go for it. He's got the green juice. I gave him super kale tower.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  So we can listen to Tony choke today on the show. You know, the thing about being in the field is everybody goes through it. The trick is to recognize.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Everyone goes through it all the time, right?

• 25:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  Every day.

• 25:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, there's something, you know, it's funny. I'm driving up here. I hit way more traffic. I'm a real fanatic about punctuality. And it bothers me that I'm late. So you got like three texts from me. Hey, just letting you know where I am. I'm in here. And by the way, certainly. You know, but I'm the guest on the show. I could also have like the pompous attitude going, hey, are my red M and M's ready? And, uh, you know, I hope you've got some champagne on ice because I'm a busy guy.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:18Speaker 02

  Right? Um, so a lot of it, so what it is, is like, I'm in the field with not that it's going to be a bad show or you're gonna, you know, you're gonna be upset or anything, just it's, it's about my reputation. It's the way I present myself on camera. So.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:32Speaker 02

  But I recognize it and instead of letting it's, you know, take on its own life, I can have a conversation with it. So that's really the, the, the message here is that when we understand the neural circuitry of fear, we understand how it can influence our behavior, then you stay more present. You're, you're, you're more zen about everything.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:53Speaker 02

  Uh, ideally, but most importantly, you're, you're, you're not in denial about, you know, what things that you're doing and how you're feeling. Right? I think that's huge. I mean, if, if I think people be, I can guarantee happiness, but I think people are just, they're more real. They're more centered.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:11Speaker 02

  Going, hey, you know, hey, Louis, I'm really scared about this, you know, and maybe I'd alter the word depending on the presentation. Guys, I've got some real concerns about this presentation. You know, I, I, I probably, you know, don't want to get a phone call from one of my coaches. Dude, I'm scared shitless about this next course. And like, I'm going, whoa, dude, you're, you're teaching a bunch of SWAT. What do you mean you're scared? Choking like, I don't want to hear that. I like, hey, you're sure we should open with that slide because this group is right in braille. You know, let's, let's get creative.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  Right. Now, what?

• 27:42Speaker 01

  Is fear important for people? Or is there a way to eliminate it a hundred percent?

• 27:49Speaker 02

  The, um.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  You can't, well, you wouldn't want to eliminate it, right? So certain types of fear, many types of fear, keep you alive. Yeah. You know, I'm gonna read the back of this label before I take this pill or drink this thing or, right? I'm gonna check the speed limit here, I'm gonna, you know, I, you know, you just came back from Europe. Did you stop off and you've been to England? Yeah. You know, look right. Right, right. Exactly, yeah. So it's like, I don't want to get hit by a double decker, double post, right? So there's lots of fears that, that keep you alive. Right, so fear is good. Yeah, fear, fear is good. The pejorative fear, the one that, that prevents you from. Paralyzes us. Yeah, and so there's a thing I coined called emotional inertia. The, you know, so inertia is a body's inability to move.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Emotional inertia is when you get, when it gets stuck there, you blow that, you blow that emotional fuse, comes back to your emotional intelligence. And, um, you know, and most, a lot of people are, are stuck there, you know, uh, you know, I could say that. They're stuck in the mind. Yeah, they're, they're stuck in their mind, but they're stuck in that emotional. You know, so on the cycle behavior, we talk about this whole GPS and getting out of the fear loop.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  The visual looks like an electrical flow chart. So if you pop up the. I'll, I'll put up the, the image on the show notes as well. Yeah, so pop that up because it's, it's a, it's a good map. So you can see each one of those blocks, motivation, expectation, visualization, you know, belief systems, neuros, you know, and it goes all the way through to, uh, challenges, right? Door, then it goes to goal, action, result, your next block, uh, then it's a plan, then review the plan. And then, uh, then your last question is, are there any conflicts between past and future? Because, you know, in, but each one of those is a metaphor, represents an electrical flow chart. And the metaphor here is that each block is a fuse in this panel that you created.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  And if you blow a fuse anywhere along the way, the current can't complete, so you're disempowered. You've no power. So it's a nice metaphor for I need to be empowered, right? I I need to, you know, if if if I'm embracing all this school of greatness, let's go. You know, being disempowered anyway, or or, you know, running on, you know, one cylinder instead of eight. Yeah. You know, still just, you know, eking my way through that that meeting or presentation or or work is it's not gonna work. Right. So, um, so the map is is is a useful tool. Again, you could plug in anything to it. And what we're talking about when we say get out of the fear loop to go back to, you know, saying, can you live without without fear?

• 30:29Speaker 02

  I prefer to refer to it as understanding there's biological fear and psychological fear. If you feel biological fear, there's a good chance something's wrong. Your body's survival system rarely airs on the side of danger. Huh. You know, I'm not, I'm gonna hang out on this thing. I know this is loose and shaky and I'm twenty floors up, but my survival system says that's good. That'll never happen, right? If you hit a golf ball, you know, into the tall grass and you're looking for it and there's a stick kinda hidden by some grass, you will always flinch and jump away thinking it's a snake. Yeah. You'll never go, that's could be a stick, but I think it's a snake and move towards where you think the ball is. So your body always airs on the side of survival. Huh.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  The trick is to not get paranoid about it. So every time you get a little little meter beep, like a little fear spike. Yeah. That you turn that into something real. No, I heard something. So for sure, somebody's trying to kill me. Right. You know. You don't paralyze yourself. Yeah. Forward. Yeah. So you don't, you don't, you don't manufacture shit to support it. What you do is is you address it as quickly as you can. I did this fear management seminar in New York City years ago. It's about five hours long. Shared a cab back with one of the attendees, you know, he's staying in a hotel near me. And he looks at me in the car and he says, what's it like to have no fear? Hmm. So I look at him and hopefully your audience gets this, but this will date how old I am. I look at him wearing a yellow cab driving back. I go, you talking to me?

• 31:53Speaker 02

  You looking at me? You talking to me? You looking at me? I started doing De Niro from Taxi. Uh huh. Okay, so you didn't get it. Twenty years old. Um, and so I listen to Led Zeppelin, you listen to Britney Spears. I get it. It's okay. So, uh. Hit me, baby, one more time. Yeah. Nice, and that's appropriate for me in self-defense. Exactly. That'll be my theme song. So, um, so what happens is I look at him, I go, you're talking to me? He got a laugh, cause you know, this was contemporary taxidermy was out. And, uh, and I go, I go, uh, when you say Mr. Blower, are you talking about me and my father?

• 32:32Speaker 02

  So he laughs and I say, listen, are you afraid of a saber-toothed tiger? I know they don't exist right now. They're extinct.

• 32:44Speaker 02

  Jumping off a rock and eating you and mauling you. If that could happen, would that, would that make you fearful? He goes, well, yeah. I said, me too. I said, how about, you know, we're in New York City, we're stopped at a light here, we're walking out. You see those guys there? If we were walking down the street and they put up their cigarettes and pointed at you and me and said, let's get them. Would you be afraid? He goes, oh, yeah. I go, me too. Yeah. I said, the difference is, and you need to understand this. I feel the exact same fear you feel. The spike ostensibly starts at the same time. Mm-hmm. But then I go, oh shit. And then I start to download a plan. And you cover your head and go fetal and get your ass kicked.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  That's the difference between being trained, having a plan, having an idea, understanding how to manage fear. I got a bad, so when I get like an adrenaline dump or something. I don't go and, you know, start typing harder and faster. I go, you know, why did that email upset me so much? Okay, what's going on here? Or why, why am I, why is my heart pounding in this phone call? Where, how am I interpreting this or what did that person just say to me? And what I try to do there, so it'd be like if I'm in the ring fighting with somebody. And I step forward and throw a jab and I get a shin kick in the leg. I immediately, pain is the mother of invention, right? And so pain being a metaphor for. Something's not right. I got a bad feeling.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 34:06Speaker 02

  You know, I immediately step back and go, okay, I need to conceal my move or I need a different strategy. I gotta move back. You know, it just becomes feedback.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:16Speaker 02

  And and biofeedback is pretty.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  And what you do with the feedback is how you get to the next place or how you overcome the fear or how you get the results you want or how you save your ass.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Under attack or, you know, feedback, a lot of it, especially with the motion intelligence, let's say it's not an attack physically, but it's an emotional attack. Usually it's our ego that spikes that adrenaline or that helps us react really fast from email or some business conversation. It's ego that's hurt or harmed or we're feeling whatever attack that way, right?

• 34:47Speaker 02

  I mean, it it could be, it could be, you can get an email, you know, you're waiting for uh uh an email from the most important person in your, in the next chapter of your business career. And you realize the email comes in and goes, uh, who is this? You know, you know, that would be like ego, I don't even know who I am. I learned in parties and, you know, oh, it's Lewis, right? Remember I was, you know, you know, stalking you at the department, you know, that, you know, that would be ego. Where you might get an email from like his secretary where he goes, uh, you know, Mr. So and so wasn't taking uh any applications or any proposals at this time.

• 35:27Speaker 02

  And you're like, you you know, you you feel like this was the last shot and now you're, you know, it's not ego, but you're you're debilitated because you start the cycle of behavior. You now you've got this negative expectation. You're visualizing failure. You're in the fear loop. You know, so there's, there's a bunch of triggers or stimuli that could actually uh uh attack you emotionally. But we tell people, there were, again, I think I alluded to it earlier, that there were, there are three arsenals, emotional, psychological, physical. The first place, every victim of violence. So, you know, my background, I teach, I, you know, the neat thing about our courses is, you know, I can be, you know, I can teach you all this stuff through understanding Tupperware.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 36:12Speaker 02

  Right? And you go, well, you know, I don't, I always eat out, it's not really a good for Tupperware, but this course is interesting, right? I teach it through personal defense. Personal defense, if I said to you, you know, most people won't take a self-defense course, but they'll take a first aid course. And I go, you got the timeline wrong there, right? Right? Get that. Save yourself. Right. Yeah. You, you know, I, I wanna know how to put a tourniquet on me. Like, no, you wanna know how to pick up danger in advance, so you don't need the tourniquet. Right? It's kinda funny when, yeah, I don't, you know, yeah, I just never got around to it. I always wanted to know, you know, and, and so, you know, it, it's, it's an interesting thing.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  So every victim of violence who lived to tell the tale said, I had a bad feeling before the attack. Every single one. So, you know, if I came to you with a business idea and you thought it had a fifty-one percent chance of going big, you might invest some money. If it was sixty or seventy, you really might consider it was eighty, ninety. You're like, I'm in. Cause you, you know, you'd never look at anyone goes a hundred percent sure that you're getting your money back and, and this is, right? But every victim of violence, if I told you, hey, fifty-one percent of all, of all victims said they had a bad feeling, that'd be, you know, considering we're talking about, you know, grief is bodily harm to you or some, or somebody in your family, you go, well, that's an important statistic.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  Right? But it's a hundred percent. Hundred percent said I had a bad feeling. Well, feelings are emotions. People don't know how to identify, address, navigate emotions, not realizing that also at an unconscious level, those emotions are, are either motivating, inspiring, or wreaking havoc on the psychological ruminations. Right. Which is, you know, you know, if I say, hey, Louis, did you read that document and sign it? I need it back, you know, or last week. And you go, and you've had that, I've had that, where I won't look at something. You know, I, I do not wanna read this. I don't wanna see what it's, right? And it doesn't matter. It could be, you know, a letter from, you know, you know, somebody. It could be a legal thing. It could be, uh, and it was, so whatever it is.

• 38:18Speaker 02

  But there's an emotional, psychological barrier to the physical action of reading it. And if we got to that place sooner, and this is the story in New York, with the guy in the car. I said, we both have the same fear about the same thing. The difference is because I have the ability, if I choose, to go, why am I in the field of this? You know, is this legit? Or am I, am I manufacturing this? Is now, I know, you know, consuming my day worrying about this shit that's not, not ever gonna happen? Right. Or should I be conservative? So how to get out of fear loop quickly? How do you recognize it and get out when you're something is fearful and you're reacting? You know, the ma, our, our magic answer is always scenario dictates.

• 38:59Speaker 02

  So you, you know, the neat, the neat thing is, is um, there's a lot of what I consider gimmicky formula. Sure. Formulating approaches to stuff and they are in a part, you know, there's Barnes and Noble's filled with books on how to do this. At the end of the day, it's got to resonate with your personality. Yeah. It's got to make sense to you. I tell people you gotta blend the three eyes, instincts and intuition and then combine that to create intelligence. Right? It's just as, you, you know, you can't, if you deny or you violate your instincts and you ignore your intuition. I'm gonna bet that whatever happened next wasn't intelligent. Hmm. Right? So I try to find always this holistic blend.

• 39:43Speaker 02

  Uh, it's huge in self-defense. So you ask me, how do you get out of fear loop fast? Um, sometimes you can't. So, you know, so people, people ask me, they want that, you know, okay, so what happens when this happens? I know my answer is, I don't know. Yeah. I'm paying you to give me the answer. I go, well, guess what? Like if this is like a lifelong pattern of yours. Yeah. There's no fast way out of this. You know, if it's like a, you know, if you're in a self-defense situation, you're going, look, if you stab me again, I'm gonna defend myself. Then you're not moving faster. Right. You know, it's like things have to be happening faster. So the real answer is what's the scenario? Mm-hmm.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  So, you know, someone says to you, uh, hey, uh, dude, uh, we gotta break your lease. I know you put in, you know, uh, twenty grand in renovations, but we sold the building. And your heart starts pounding. You're like, oh, my God, are you kidding me? Like, it took me like six months to get, you know, get in here. You know, what about my money? And the guy says, sorry, man, just business.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 40:45Speaker 02

  Well, you know, like, you might talk to a friend of yours who who's a billionaire. He goes, what's the big deal, dude?

• 40:52Speaker 01

  Move. It's twenty grand.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  You know, you know, and and, you know, you call your mom up and she's like, oh, what's gonna happen? And, you know, when are you gonna get a real job? And you're like, and you're like, whoa, you know, so it's the, it's different for everybody.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  Perception, it's really.

• 41:08Speaker 02

  It's a part of it is part of a huge part is perception. Uh, I agree with that. What I like to tell people is like, look, we can give you the tools. But if I say, look, this is the house you need to build, then you're always building my house. If I go, this is the answer to this question, and you're, you know, it's always my answer.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  You gotta look within. Yeah, you gotta recognize and be aware of every situation and then take action.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  What what exactly what I what I try to do with our uh, uh, our research and our program is give people the tools to help them make their next decisions. And so somebody says, well,

• 41:47Speaker 01

  You teach them how to fish.

• 41:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. It's a good one. And so, you know, you know, I've had people at the end of my course shake my hand, you know, go, oh, my God, this has totally changed my life. Thank you. And I've had other people who go out to shake my hand and go, yeah, I want to thank you. It was a very interesting course. And you can tell they're like completely still in the fear loop.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 42:08Speaker 02

  When they signed up for the course in the morning, they didn't know they were in the fear loop. Now they know they're in the fear.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  Right, but they're nowhere, you know, so like, should I refund the money? No, the the material is legit. The information is good. If they choose to continue the self work, because at the end of the day, it's it's, you know, you ask anybody who's been successful short of somebody who who, uh, you know, discovered a treasure or won a lottery.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:36Speaker 02

  Right? Uh, you know, and they'll tell you, you know, all the jobs they had, all the times they wanted to quit, all the people that screwed them over, um, how hard they worked, you know, relationships that got messed up as a, you know. And so I'm not talking about the workaholic who destroys people. I'm talking about people who are just really passionate about what they do.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  In life, there aren't, whether it's expressed through business or music or sports, whatever. So at the end of the day, you know, there are are are tenants or pillars that you can extract from those performances of, you know, they were honest, they had integrity, they had good work ethic, uh, you know, they were incredible perseverance in the face of great adversity. I mean, everybody, you know, it might sound grandiose, but you know, if I started interviewing you and I go, what happened here? What happened here? Oh, you forgot about that. Remember that day you didn't get out of bed? Like, so you're in the fear loop all day, you know, but this is what, this is the type of humane and introspective approach. I don't like,

• 43:41Speaker 02

  you know, I've read or glanced through so many of the fix it now, self-help, do this. And I like, I skim through them and I go, really? You're gonna, you want me to visualize Cindy Crawford talking to me to help me overcome my fear? Like, sure, that would make me nervous, but how's that gonna help me with this?

• 44:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  You know? So a lot of it's a scenario with, you know, everything is, if everything's on the line for you in that moment, it's different. If if somebody is trying to rape you or take you to a secondary crime scene or mug you or uh, uh, if, you know, someone's stealing your business and and now you're, I mean, there's, there's a a hundred.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  There is. And in your courses or in your workshops, you teach the emotional, psychological, but also you teach it through the physical training. You actually put them through exercises, right?

• 44:33Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. And that and that's the, that's the kind of cool thing that that I, you know, the joke I made it before about Tupperware, no offense to anyone who loves Tupperware, Tupperware Company. Is, this is actually a a useful course. God forbid your situation. You've at least got some mental blueprints for, oh, my God, God. Oh, you know, the joke I always make is this, is that if you're smart, you have a fire extinguisher. Okay, or it's business. But you don't look at a fire extinguisher and go, okay, I pulled a pin here. I just squeezed this hose. It's pretty straightforward. It's like using a hose and I spray it at the fire and then get the hell out of there and let the professionals take over.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  Wait, I don't know, and I can't think that anyone in history have ever, or the world, ever looked at a fire extinguisher and said, why doesn't somebody come up with like a martial arts fire extinguisher academy where I can get a black belt fire extinguisher? Right? Like, I wanna do fire extinguisher drills every day, three times a week and get my yellow. And I'm being facetious that it's so simple to use. It's a gross motor skill. You pick it up, you point, you spray, you run. You do an assessment first in the scenario. Shit, you know, this is too late. I'm outta here. Or, or I can intercept. And it's the same with self-defense. So this is a metaphor for self-defense. So you don't, you don't look at a fire extinguisher and go, ah, I wanna get a black belt fire extinguisher. It just doesn't occur to you. You go, I get, I get how to use this. I read, I get how to use it.

• 45:53Speaker 02

  You're a little bit nervous. You buy a ten dollar one at Costco and you pop it open and you spray it and go, oh, that was easy. Okay. Do you need to do another rep? I don't think so. I got it. Right? Here's part two of that visual and a metaphor. Have you ever looked at your fire extinguisher in your office, your house, glass down and you went, that was a waste of money? And your buddy near you goes, why would you say that for a fire extinguisher? No, the place never caught on fire. I was really hoping after I bought the fire extinguisher that I would be in a fire, so I could use it. Right? How stupid would that be? So the way I teach self-defense, behaviorally self-defense is that it's like a fire. You don't wanna be in it. But you wanna have, you wanna be the fire extinguisher. How do I put this out?

• 46:34Speaker 02

  And get the hell outta here and then stomp on, get outta there, let the professionals come in with it. It's a fire department or police or whatever. Right. Um, so yeah, we do do physical drills. It's based on, uh, what I, what I define as primal gross motor loop. It's things that are, to borrow language from Coach Glassman, elemental and fundamentals of your survival. Our body moves in instinctive ways, uh, so we don't teach complex motor skills. Simple moves. It's just simple, simple movements based on the body's startle flinch mechanism. If I throw something at you, your hands are gonna come up and protect your head. So this flinch mechanism to protect your head, to protect the command center. We then capitalize on this, the, the, the, the energy, the kinetic energy that's created. The speed of the flinch is insane. If you think about this, we're getting graphic.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  Someone goes through their car windshield without a seatbelt on, there's always trauma on their forearms. Ask any paramedic. What that means is the startle flinch reflex was so fast that it, that it bypassed. Everything going on to protect the head before they get hit the window. Really? You think about that timing. Wow. Okay. Uh, so they're not just gonna go torpedo with their. Right, going through, oh shit, yeah. Right. Heads go first, there's always trauma. Bringing it up at least. Yeah, so we had a woman at our CrossFit Defense Course recently that was amazing.

• 47:49Speaker 02

  I got an email from her and I got into an accident. She was driving into this course in Atlanta. Got in an accident, I don't know if I'll make it. Uh, uh, sorry, I'm so looking forward to it.

• 48:01Speaker 02

  She ends up getting there. Their rental company was able to switch out her vehicle or she skidded off the road in a rainstorm, totaled the vehicle. Uh, and got you insurance. I'm talking about all this, all of a sudden I see her eyes light up.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  She goes running up to me at the break and she shows me her forearm that's all got an abrasion and a huge bruise on her forearm. She said, oh my God, this was from the airbag when it deployed. Shut up. Yeah. She put her arm, wow. Yeah, so we're, however fast an airbag explodes to protect. So fast. Yeah, she was able to still, the start of flinch mechanism, beat the airbag up and, and her arm was bruised. I was like, it's like, wow, you know, so where's the camera? Why need the testimonial right now? You know, so i- i- it's amazing to, so use the speed and reliability of start of flinch. And, and kind of reverse engineer a self-defense system around it. It's can ruin behavior for the good Samaritan.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  The hands are gonna come up, go and please don't want any trouble. Right. Uh, if there's an assault and on its way, like, you know, this, the movement's already happened, those hands are already coming up to protect your head anyhow. And then we teach you how to use your, your forearm and your elbow and your hands, uh, tactically, because they're already locked. To defend yourself, to react back to. Cause to think about this, the, the aggression locks and loads. The weapon system. So there's no like cognitive, oh, I should get into a stance.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  The stance that is triggered is very subtle.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 49:31Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  Interesting. So where can people find more about these workshops?

• 49:34Speaker 02

  Uh, I don't know if you heard of Google.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Where's your best website?

• 49:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So, so, uh, um, the best, the best way is to do, well, there's three types of workshops that we do. So if you're long course of military, go to our Blauer tactical website, TonyBlauer.com, T O N Y B L A U E R dot com. All of our stuff, you know, links there. If you're specifically in the CrossFit community, uh, in for the fitness side, go to CrossFit's website. We have it all listed as well, but you can go to CrossFit.com. And, uh, if you, if you just look in their specialty, uh, search, we have the listing there and you can just, uh, you know, email my office, uh, you know, info@BlauerTactical. We're, we're online. Everything's online.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  And do you have any specifics for like business professionals, entrepreneurs? Is there anything like that out there? Is it more?

• 50:21Speaker 02

  We, we get asked kind of like, like, uh, you know, we'll probably get some inquiries as a result of this show. It's more, uh, it's more kind of a word of mouth thing. Like I've done some stuff for some, some big, big companies. But what it was, was like, I remember, uh, this, this one Fortune 500 company that brought me to a bunch of times. Their director of, uh, security was a martial artist who had been reading about me in martial arts magazine. Ked at one of my seminars and said, oh my God, we need to do this for our traveling executives, you know? Um, so I've done, I've done some stuff for some big companies like that.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:54Speaker 02

  Where, you know, it's kind of like this weird six degrees of separation.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 50:59Speaker 02

  Um, it's kind of cool, but again, it's, it's the, it's like I said earlier, it's that, that, uh, it's a seminar where you go, I hope I never have to use this, but now I did it. It's like, uh,

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Nice to have.

• 51:12Speaker 02

  I got, I got it, but wait a minute. There was all this other, what do we call it? You know, value added. You know, there's all this other stuff that I got out of that. I learned more about emotion, fear, psychology, how to make decisions, how to be correct. I mean, that's, that's, that's day to day.

• 51:26Speaker 01

  That's the real value in my mind.

• 51:27Speaker 02

  Oh yeah. I mean, if you think about it, you know, one of the things, I wrote an article in the eighties that said, you know, you know, every day we have some sort of confrontation and how you handle those confrontations determines the quality of your day.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Your happiness.

• 51:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. And therefore the quality of your week or your life. So, you know, the confrontation. May or may not be something like a physical dangerous one. We hope that it never is. But you know, you know, some people take traffic personally, right? And you know, email and it just, uh, you know, just the way people are. Understanding how to manage this stuff just, you know, helps, you know, regulate, balance you.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Right. So everyone, make sure you go check out Tony, TonyBlower.com, but also Instagram. There's tons of cool pictures you got posted on there.

• 52:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Beating people's asses and self-defense moves and other cool stuff. And your wife is cool.

• 52:16Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 52:17Speaker 01

  Tons of pictures of your wife and your kids.

• 52:19Speaker 02

  And what I eat sometimes.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  What you eat. Yeah, exactly. So last question is what I ask everyone. What is your definition of greatness?

• 52:28Speaker 02

  Wow. Um.

• 52:32Speaker 02

  I think. Let me answer that. With an answer I just gave to somebody last week in an interview who asked me. Who my favorite superhero was.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 52:46Speaker 02

  And what superpower I would wanna have. And I said to this nice lady, I refused to answer that. She went, oh, really? Why is that? I said, because superheroes, the ones you're talking about, don't exist. My superheroes are real people.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 53:04Speaker 02

  Who make shit happen, who overcome incredible odds.

• 53:07Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 53:07Speaker 02

  And their story's different. And, uh, I got a tattoo a couple of weeks ago and it says. I've got a tattoo for everybody in my arm. Because it's, it's personal to me, but I, I changed the expression. I'd seen this tattoo as going through. My fear loop of, uh, you know, always going through, but about, you know, a year ago, some real rough stuff with some business and some other stuff. And I was kinda scanning Pinterest and I saw this tattoo that said, I'm the hero in this story.

• 53:41Speaker 02

  And I saved it. That's what spoke to me. I'm the hero in the story. So it's like, Louis, you know, get out of your bed. What are you gonna do? You're the hero in this story. Are you an extra in your life, or are you the hero? You're the lead rule. I changed the tattoo to, "You're the hero in your story." So if I read it, it reminds me, "I need to be great today." And if you're reading it, and you go, "Hey, what's that tattoo?" I go, "Hey, you're the hero in your story." And so, I shared that with this woman. I go, "You know, we're the superheroes. You gotta be the superhero in your story. And if you're doing your best to do that, that's greatness."

• 54:19Speaker 01

  I love it, man. We'll end it on that. Make sure to check out TonyBlower.com, also @TonyBlower, everywhere online, pretty much, right? Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. You're the man, brother. I appreciate it. And we'll have to get some people at your next workshop soon.

• 54:32Speaker 02

  Cool. Thanks.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Thanks, bro.

• 54:40Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, guys. I hope you enjoyed this amazing episode with my man, Tony Blower. Please be sure to check out the show notes over at SchoolOfGreatness.com. I've got some cool stuff that we talked about on the show, some videos, some images for you. Make sure to check it out, so you can get all the notes about this show. If you enjoyed it, please share it with your friends on Twitter or Facebook. And again, remember to tag yourself on Instagram, where you're listening to the School of Greatness. And if you would hop over to iTunes and leave a review with some feedback, I would most appreciate that love. With that, guys, you guys know what you need to do. It's time to step up. It's time to take action. It's time to get the results that you want.

• 55:24Lewis Howes?

  So make sure to go out there, baby, and do something great.