Facing a Violent World: Mental and Spiritual Readiness with Lt. Col. Dave Grossman

In a world where danger can strike at any moment, how do we prepare our minds, bodies, and spirits to face it? In this powerful episode, we sit down with Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, acclaimed author of On Killing, On Combat, and On Spiritual Combat. Grossman is a leading expert in mental fortitude, human aggression, and the psychology of survival, with decades of experience training military, law enforcement, and everyday citizens.

Join us as we delve into the reality of living in an increasingly violent world. Grossman shares life-saving insights into combat stress, the importance of preparation, and why denial is the ultimate enemy. He also explores the critical role of sleep, spiritual grounding, and the "sheepdog mindset" in staying resilient and ready for anything.

Whether you’re a seasoned prepper or just beginning your journey, this episode is packed with actionable wisdom to help you thrive in today’s uncertain times. Tune in and discover why preparation isn’t about fear—it’s about freedom.

Don’t miss this eye-opening conversation with one of the most influential voices in preparedness and self-reliance.

Join us at Preparedness Pro in our Facebook Group or on our blog where you'll find peaceful, practical preparedness advice every day of the week!

Transcript

Sheepdogs and Sheep: Protecting Yourself in a Dangerous World with Dave Grossman
Kellene: [00:00:00] Welcome to Preparedness Pro, where being prepared isn't about fear. It's about freedom. I'm your host, Kellene, and every episode we explore the peaceful principles of preparedness and self reliance. No gloom, no doom, just practical solutions for everyday living that help you become more independent and prepared for whatever life brings your way.
From kitchen skills to financial wisdom, emergency planning to sustainable living. We're building a community of capable, confident people who understand that preparedness isn't about preparing for the worst. It's about being free to live your best life regardless of what comes your way. So whether you're starting your preparedness journey or you're a seasoned pro, you're in the right place.
Welcome.
Hey everyone. It's Kellene, the Preparedness Pro. We are live with an amazing guest. I've probably used the word amazing before, but let me just put it this way. I've never had butterflies in my stomach because of a guest like I do today. I'm so [00:01:00] excited to present Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman to you.
If you have been living under a rock, let me just share a little bit of information about this amazing man. He's the author of some significant bestsellers. They're not just bestsellers. They're used by other experts as reference books. He's the author of the book On Killing, which was translated into seven languages, sold over a half a million copies in English.
 It's been cited in scholarly books, scholarly works. Try saying that real fast a couple times. Thousands of times. He also wrote the book On Combat. That is a U. S. Marine Corps Commandant's required reading list. That's been translated. Quarter million copies sold in English right there. And then he also received a Christian Book Award finalist award
acknowledgement by his book On Spiritual Combat. That's just a few. He's written six non fiction books, published four novels, two children's books. He's got five patents to his name. This [00:02:00] man is, , revered as a great American hero because of what he has done. His research has been cited in the White House.
He's been sent to the White House on a couple of occasions to brief the president and the vice president in his areas of expertise. The man knows what he's talking about. He is what I would consider the godfather of mental fortitude. , specifically in the day and age in which we live. In fact, this is interesting and it's kind of coming full circle for me.
When I first read his book On Killing, I then immediately read the book On Combat. And I had an interesting phone call that same week when I finished the book On Combat. It was from a CEO of we'll just say a woman's retail line. I won't mention the woman's retail line, but they had been targeted of some violent crimes around closing time.
And so the CEO asked me if I would come in and. Quote, teach his girls some moves. And here [00:03:00] I just read the godfather of these books On Killing and On Combat. And I realized just how important the mental fortitude is. And in spite of it being a big contract and everything, I told the man, I'm sorry, I can't do that.
I have to fix their heads first. And he was kind of taken aback because, you know, he's Kind of a pretty big deal and thought that I would just kind of be gushing over myself and really excited to, to take this contract. But I said, unless you give me more time, there's not much I can do for you. I've got to fix their heads first.
So it was very interesting. I ended up not taking the contract. I guess I must've offended him somehow, but , I have this man to thank for that. So let's welcome, we're going to call him Dave, but let's welcome Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman.
Dave: Thanks for that awesome introduction. Not worthy. Whoever you talk about needs to go get a life, but I love what you were talking about with that case study.
The Marine Corps has a great phrase. They said the body cannot go. Where the mind has never been. And that's what you're [00:04:00] talking about. That's what this podcast is all about. You know, the body cannot know where the mind has never been. We've got to get our mind right. And then the body will go with it. And that's so cool.
You're able to use my books and apply that. That's a blessing. Thank you. 
Kellene: Well, thank you. Well, , there's just so much that I want to fire off at you. We've got a limited amount of time and you've got a beautiful busy schedule. No wonder. I just want to get a little bit about your personal background, if you don't mind.
I want to know what personally drove you to dedicate your life to studying these difficult aspects of human nature. Because before you began researching the psychology of combat, Was there a specific moment or experience that made you realize that this field needed more understanding? 
Dave: You know, in 1974, was a young paratrooper, 86th Airborne Division, and we were ready to deploy around the world anytime, right?
We were, boom, ready to punch out and drop into anywhere, right? And we had Vietnam veterans all around us. We wanted to know what was combat going to [00:05:00] be like, and they wouldn't say. It's like this taboo topic and, uh, and so, uh, you know, and I began to understand later, I wrote the book On Killing and, uh, based on thousands of interviews of those have been there, but it's a taboo topic.
Imagine somebody said, well, how's your sex life? You know, I'm going to take and get it on, which you wouldn't tell them, but if a scholarly research masters and Johnson and some scholar, they would ask you, you might tell them, might tell them the truth. So fast forward, you know, about, , about four or five, six years.
And he got captain Grossman, army ranger in route to teach at West point, doing my research and, and that became my book On Killing. It's funny early copies of this book. would be in the veterans community and the wife would make Xeroxes of it and send it off to other wives and, and the wives would all say, well, is this what it was like for you?
And the husband said, oh, let me read the dang book and I'll tell you, you know. So we had this, this [00:06:00] snowball like effect of interactive feedback. And I thought we'd really nailed it, what's at the heart of, of combat. But I found out, it was wrong. For those who fully prepared themselves, killing's just not that big a deal.
And you'd want it to be that way. If you could choose how you're, you know, a wife who, husband was a cop, the bad guy came to the house, committed the family. And she killed this guy. And she said, I have never lost a second of sleep over killing that guy to protect my children. And that's what you'd want it to be.
If you choose how you responded, there's no reason why you should be devastated by this. And, and what I found out, what was really hard was the things happening in combat. Like auditory exclusion. Now, the final book in this trilogy, we've got On Combat and we've got On Hunting, but you can't understand killing or combat without understanding hunting.
Hunting is the single best way to prepare for combat. But hunters will tell you that they got a deer in their sights, they pulled the trigger, and they don't hear the shot. It's [00:07:00] auditory exclusion. And the same thing is true in combat. Now, how could we have had 500 years of gunpowder combat, five stinking centuries of gunpowder combat?
Not let people know, hey, the shots get muted in combat. So that's what On Combat's about. That's that's this focal dynamic came up came international bestseller during the pandemic. And doctors said, well, if it works in combat, it works in the ER during the pandemic. It was chosen to be, Ukraine Book of the Year Award, and here we are in 1994, in, in May and June of this year, I was in Ukraine, training their troops from one end to the other, Kiev to, to, from Lviv to Kiev, two or three presentations a day across Ukraine, based on this book.
So that's, that's a story, if you will, of my evolution, focused On Killing, it was embraced, it was needed, but then I realized, for those who have been there, What's really important is this. We'll spend more time hopefully on talking about the reality of combat and the crazy things that happen [00:08:00] and how important it is to be forewarned and forearmed about these things.
Kellene: Oh yeah. Like I said, there's just so much I want to dig into here. , let's start with combat stress though. You've identified various physiological responses. How am I understanding these responses help people prepare for and handle nOn Combat crisis situations? 
Dave: You bet. And you know, it's interesting.
 I was a West Point psych professor. You know, it was, 1991 through 3. And, they said, you're a hand picked smart guy. It's brand new, shiny degrees. Give a smart stuff. Get it right to the generals. And we said, look at all this sports psychology. Look at all this performance psychology. We got to use this stuff.
Generals, older, wiser heads had a good answer. No. Just because it works in some stupid game doesn't mean it works in somebody's trying to kill you. And we didn't know. Well, 9 11 happened, and the war began, and we began to experiment. Our top spec ops people had had Olympic, coaches and pro [00:09:00] ball coaches and it works if it works in combat that if it works in sports it works in combat stress is stress so dealing with any stressful situation that these this data becomes available one of our books is warrior mindset which is an application of performance psychology sports psychology to the battlefield and and this great finding that it really does work it works in the olympics works in super bowl Orcs and something else trying to kill you.
So the bottom line is stress is stress. And if you prepare for combat, you're far far better able to prepare for anything that's happening. Now one of the root dynamics to understand, interpersonal human aggression is the most psychologically toxic thing we'll face. Now don't cop a pity party. The vast majority of cops don't get PTSD and don't commit suicide.
The vast majority of veterans do not commit suicide, do not get PTSD. But of all the things that could happen to us, Interpersonal human aggression is the most [00:10:00] psychologically toxic thing. The DSM, the Bible of psychiatry, psychology, talked about PTSD, says whenever the cause of your trauma is human in nature, the degree of trauma is usually more severe and long lasting.
So you tell me now, is there a difference between these two scenarios? Scenario one, tornado hits house while you're gone, put your family in the hospital. How do you feel about Thank God they're alive. Scenario two, criminals break into the house while you're gone and beat your family in a hospital state.
Now you feel any different. It's all the difference in the world. One's a random act of nature. The other is an intentional malignant act by a human being. So for those who are preppers, for those who prepare for interpersonal human aggression, they're far better able to deal with. You see, denial kills us twice.
Denial kills us once physically. We don't have the tools, we don't have the skills. And when that traumatic event happens, we die physically. But even if we [00:11:00] survive, you can live the rest of your life in hell with the simple things you could and should have done. Preparation saves us twice. It saves us once physically.
You have the tools, you have the skills, and you're triumphant. But even if you fail, you can live with yourself because you did everything you could reasonably do. So denial kills us twice. Preparation saves us twice. And the ultimate thing we must prepare for. Is for human aggression and human violence and the research, you know, you mentioned it's kind of a good time working in I was in ukraine They're in the middle of a terrible terrible war.
Now. I have a son who just retired after nine combat Who is three bronze stars? I have a grandson in the army who's currently deployed to kuwait. Now, here's all these Ukrainian troops. What if you're my son? What if my grandson had a brief window of time to give him information? The one was a whole sleep dynamic You And I, I would love to have another podcast on just that.[00:12:00] 
And the other was this, just a brief one to a time of what's happening in combat. And we begin with the diminished sound effects. The shots get muted, just like when you're hunting, you are still getting hearing loss by the way. Hunter, Hunter, aware hearing protection. When he hunts, he had deaf oldies might be paid in the buck, right?
Tunnel vision, bad guys have tunnel vision too. And lateral movement takes you right off the rig, right off their radar screen. We should rapid lateral movement draw and side step every draw should have a side step built into it But not side step when they draw should be the exception a lot more on weapons training and so on but bad guys have television too Autopilot, you do not rise to the challenge you sink to the level of your training the body cannot go where the mind has never been and so it's about training and making the skills available on that slow motion time I have had hundreds of people tell me The slow motion time is so powerful.
They can see the bullet in combat. , [00:13:00] It's not like the matrix where the bullet crawls past paintball or airsoft and kind of track with the arts. That's what's happening. And several times they've walked on point where the bullet hit. Now just last year I was in Long Island at NYPD, a bunch of regional cops, and a U.
S. Marshals team that had recently been in a horrendous gunfight. And one of the marshals told me, she said, we're in a narrow corridor, coming down this corridor with my gun out, that guy pops around the corner and shoots at me. I ducked and shot. And she said, I watched his bullet go past and clip my hair.
She says, I watched that bullet go past and clip my hair. So I'll tell you about slow motion time. So we need to know these things. So when it happens, there's no big deal. And really what's very important is memory loss and memory distortions. Half of all train season cops had blackouts. I told you about the, the cop whose wife had to kill the intruder.
The guy was not just going to kill a cop, going to go to the house and kill their dad. And she killed [00:14:00] this guy, game over. And she said, I never lost a second of sleep. But she said, you know what really bothered me? She said, I heard my voice on the audio recording of my 9 1 1 call. And to this day, I have no memory of making that call.
It really bugged me. And then somebody showed her your book. Look, it's in the book. Big shooting, armed combat, it's normal. It's just fine. And you can't just say, oh, that's normal. You got to show it to them in the book. And, and wouldn't it have been better for her to know that ahead of time? It's so much better.
We want to be vaccine and not antibiotics. When, if she'd have known this stuff ahead of time, we've been so less traumatic. But half have memory gaps, some come back, some don't. At one out of five, 22 percent just flat remembered something that did not happen. And it's worthy of a whole trip all by itself.
But if half of all trained seasoned cops had memory gaps, and one out of five had memory distortions, how much more so? Might have happened to us. [00:15:00] And we want you to survive physically, psychologically, spiritually, and legally, now with the cops, when they're in deadly force incident, here's my weapon.
Here's the perpetrators in fear for my life. I want to talk to my union lawyer who cops will say, here's the basic evidence that you need. I won't say anything else. I want to talk to my lawyer. And that's the world we're in right now. When you're in a deadly force incident you say I was in fear for my life.
I used deadly force I don't want to say anything else. I want to talk to my attorney. These are the magic words There's memory gaps and memory distortions You put this stuff on paper, and it's going to kick your tail in court. 
Kellene: Yeah. 
Dave: It's just this dynamic of being prepared, you know, emotionally, like my book on On Spiritual Combat, physically, and, and legally, and understanding that this memory gaps and memory distortions are normal, and be prepared when somebody says, No, man, that didn't happen.
He said, well, [00:16:00] that could have been a memory distortion. I heard about those. It's so hard to believe that something you visualized didn't really happen. But if you know ahead of time, one young cop told me as a California highway patrol officer, his partner was murdered. He kills a bad guy. He said, talk about talk about television.
It's like looking through a soda straw. Auditory exclusion was real, but I was warned about it during the debriefing. People talk about things I didn't remember. I was okay with that. And people said no man that didn't happen He said if I didn't know about memory distortions, I'd have spent the rest of my life Thank you.
They all conspired to lie to me about some goofy aspect of what happened You see i'm more than convinced to know about these things ahead of time and and that's where the book comes in And that's where Ukraine, if I had just a few minutes to teach all these kids in Ukraine, that's what I wanted to cover was these , memory, this whole dynamic of perceptual distortions.
It really meets every aspect of a psychotic episode, blackouts, [00:17:00] distortions, hallucinations, that meets every definite psychotic episode. The fact that somebody's trying to kill you is bad enough without your body doing weird. And one of the things all of you will give up. But if one of them might happen, boom, then they won't blindside you.
And that's why of all my books, the one that I recommend first and foremost is On Combat. On Killing is important, it's academic. But, I'm glad you honed in On Combat. I'm so pleased you founded this service. The whole nation of Ukraine has. The Marine Corps has made it part of their required reading program for over 20 years.
So, so thank you for the feedback and that's kind of why it's so important. 
Kellene: Well, let me ask you this. A couple of questions have come to mind that I want to, I would just feel remiss if we didn't talk about it. So to heck with my. Formal questions. Let's talk about this. Let's talk about because one of the things that you really introduced me to I mean my former husband at the time he talked to me about wolves and sheep dogs and sheep but you you just really hit that home and we've got a case [00:18:00] that's prominent in the news right now of, , of a sheepdog and him being persecuted, because he was the sheepdog.
And yet so many people were so grateful that Daniel Penny was there on the subway. What is it that makes someone more inclined to be a sheepdog as opposed to a sheep? 
Dave: Yeah, you know, we, we wrote the book On Hunting. It's a trilogy On Hunting, On Combat, On Killing. , they're all weave in. And throughout the history of our species.
We've been in the middle of the food chain. The British government says, we talk about this in the book, and by the way, hunting is the single best way to prepare for combat. We talk in the book, the British government in the nation, in India, says between 1900 and 1910, in that decade, over 100, 000 people in India were killed by tigers.
Tigers killed 100, 000 people, that they knew of! And that in just that one decade throughout history, we've been in the middle of the food chain. It's hard for us to imagine a hundred [00:19:00] thousand people killed by predators, but we have the forward set eyes of a predator. We had the gripping fangs of a predator.
We also have the chiseled teeth of a rabbit and the grinding molars of a grass eater. And we've got the ability to survive as predator or prey. There's no fun being prey. There's no fun being prey. Lot of our society has selected to be the prey. The sheep dog is the one who has decided to be the predator.
You don't have to hunt to be a sheep dog that sheep dog's in many realms. But these are the ones that decided, I am the hunter, not the hunte my grandson one time said, we're walking in the dark. He said, grandpa, there's scary things in the, I just said, yeah, it's us . We are armed and we're prepared.
We don't look for trouble. We don't. But when it comes to us, we're prepared. So, so, Daniel P, Marine, might have even read my book, you know. He's the sheepdog. He yearns for that opportunity to use his skills. And here's a situation that clearly is a threat. People are in fear for their [00:20:00] lives. This individual is psychotic, and he took action.
Now, praise God, we got a president that will almost definitely pardon him , if he is, , found guilty. We have this same prosecutor that has, has done these terrible things to our president and now doing it to this guy. And you know, if it had been a black guy killing a black guy, well, that's the oppressed killing the oppressed.
It's okay. But when it's a white guy killing a black guy, that's not okay. And this is their mindset that these are the oppressed and they can do what they want to. And cops are the oppressors. And Daniel Penny was an oppressor and the oppressor are always guilty. They're always wrong. And so that they manipulated, they found a minutes in a one count, boom, they had a second count ready to go.
 They manipulated the system to take this guy down. But even in New York, we had a hung jury on something like this. But what are the lessons? Number one, it stay the hell out of New York. It stay the hell out of L. A. stay out of all the places where these woke prosecutors are in control. Don't go there.
Stay away. This is no go [00:21:00] territory. It's filled with goofballs. And God bless all the good people who are in those areas and trying to get out of there. Don't have the option to get out of there. But number two, we've got to clearly understand. That a line is drawn if there is not immediate of life, limb or grievous bodily harm to self or others, then you, you can't necessarily take action.
 If this, this perpetrator, I don't even want to say his name, this Michael Jackson impersonator, if he just assaulted somebody, boom, then you have justification. If he just slapped somebody or tried to strangle somebody, then you got justification. The problem is that he was, he preempted it. He stopped it before it happened.
Now it's found guilty. So the law of self defense, there's got to be immediate threat of life, glamour, grievance, bodily harm, self or others. And in this case, you can make an argument there wasn't. You almost [00:22:00] have to wait. You know, we have another case where, an influencer This crazy lady was at his front door and he opened the door and gave her a shot of pepper spray and then he's being sued.
Was she an immediate threat? You know, if you open the door and she came in, if you open the door and she attacked him, then he'd been fully justified doing what he wanted to do. But this whole preemptive application of deadly force, we've got to realize as armed citizens, as cops, , there's a line there and recognize if that perpetrator had slapped somebody, attacked somebody.
Then you can take action if that home invader that the crazy lady at the front door If she'd have come in the door and give him a pepper spray, no big deal if she'd have crossed that line and represented a true Irreputable threat then we can take action and the law of self defense is really pretty clear But there's this gray area that can be interpreted heading in new york The prosecutor is doing everything he can to interpret it As far one direction as [00:23:00] possible, does that make sense?
Kellene: Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's change gears here again. And I hope you don't mind me saying this, but, , several people have, referred to you as, as a modern day superhero. And, you know, you come across no nonsense. This is what I'm going to do. I'm the sheep dog. This is what's going to happen. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.
And that's just how it is. And yet you have this, this knack for being so spiritually rooted that you sleep well at night. And I know that the spiritual preparedness that you employ is just as important as the physical. I mean, you have martial arts training with firearms, self defense, you know how to do this, but the spiritual preparedness is something that I'd like us to talk about.
Can you share with us what some of your. Ritual, if you will, or your habits that help you be so well grounded. 
Dave: Thank you, Kellene. And really all that's in my book On Spiritual Combat. You know, [00:24:00] I hope that people say, well, I know what Grossman said about On Combat and On Killing. What's he got to say about on spiritual combat?
Then the sequel of that is On Spiritual Warfare. Also when, from the faith perspective, we got the book Bulletproof Marriage, which was a Christian book award finalist. It's leverage your faith into your relationship. But when we talk about. spiritual warfare. God's commandment to us is to love God and love people.
That's the commander's intent. That's the golden rule to love God with all your heart and love others as yourself. Our purpose on this earth is to love people, to love God and love people. , and the way we do that is to immerse ourselves in his word and bring people the knowledge of his salvation.
You know, I tell people, don't get angry at God when he doesn't answer your prayer the way you think you should. You know, in the end, everybody's going to die. And no matter how hard you pray, sooner or later, we're all going to die, physically. God's greatest gift, and we've got to keep this perspective, God's greatest gift [00:25:00] is not to give us a few more years on this earth, not to give us a little less suffering.
He never promised that. God's greatest gift is to give us eternity in heaven. And all the suffering in this world is nothing, nothing, nothing, compared to one life in eternity. You understand? Eternity is infinite. Eventually, every nation falls. Eventually, our son will die. But eternity continues. So I tell people, if you're a person of faith, Take a deep breath and take that big perspective.
We're all going to die. Every nation falls, our son will die, but eternity continues. And don't let the things of this world pull you down. If you're a person of faith, you can take that big picture and don't let the things of this world pull you down. What's our purpose? To love God and love people. To protect.
The sheepdog does what they did out of love. They yearn for that opportunity. They yearn to be able to apply their skills, but they do it because they love. Jesus said greater love is known than this. That they lay [00:26:00] down their life for their friends. That's the sheepdog willing to lay down their life. And I pray one day the sheep of Arresta defeated the great shepherd and hear those words well done that wouldn't faithful sir So I introduced the concept in on spiritual warfare of being god's faithful dog.
I just want to be god's dog You know when we get there, we will understand things. We cannot comprehend but right now We cannot begin to understand what's going on. I got a dog a big old labrador treaver golden lab and Goofy little dog. She rolls in the neighbor's yard and rolls in something stinky, but I still love her and God sees every stupid thing We're doing he still loves us But will rogers said if you get to thinking you're a man of some importance Try to tell another man's dog what to do now if you ever did that the dog'll looked at his head I don't know much.
I'm just a dog. I know this. I'm not your dog. And when we're god's dog when we've given ourselves to the lord, whatever [00:27:00] happens you look behind and say i'm not your dog And and that's the greatest piece of all it said, you know The helm of salvation the world will tell you curl up in that helm of salvation And be confident in eternity, but if you believe there is a god then you pretty much got to play the game by his rules and understand what the rules are.
And that became my goal with that. And there's great power and peace and being prepared for that side of the house. , I'm 68 years old. It's my prayer that I can stay on the road doing what I do over a hundred days a year for 20 years to come. But if the Lord takes me home tomorrow, I got nothing to complain about, you know, and maybe one of the craziest things anybody ever did.
Was jumping out of an airplane. I did that as a young character, you know, and the crazy ball is a night jump And and you just hurl yourself into the darkness. It's the greatest adventure the greatest thrill You just hurl yourself into the darkness. That's what it's going to be like to die It's going to be the greatest adventure of all.
It's been an opportunity [00:28:00] to just hurl yourself into the darkness into the next great adventure. And when we take that perspective on things, I think there's a lot of peace that comes with it. And I'm far from perfect, but I've gotten over screaming and shouting at people in traffic and knowing that I should pray for them.
And I've been good at that. I've been making progress, but you know, you don't lose your temper. You give it away. Now that's, that's easy to say, it ain't so easy to do, but when we talk about resiliency, when we talk about stoicism, when we talk about self control, in resiliency, We study people who do not get PTSD, and one of the great examples, a man named Viktor Frankl, a survivor of a Nazi death camp, human skeleton, unthinkable evil, he said, I realized the only thing in the universe those Nazi bastards couldn't control is how I choose to respond.
That's Invictus. That's stoicism. That's, that's self control. The only thing in the universe you can control. You can't control anything. Nothing, nothing, nothing, [00:29:00] Yourself and a paraphrase victor Frankl. It's a big game. You lose your temper. You lose the game That's easy to say it ain't that easy to do but the first step is understanding about self control being a better leader About being a better person and being a better person is about self control So when I teach I talk about the autonomic nervous system fight or flight rest and digest And one of the first things we learned was to not crap ourselves.
That's hard Every potty train a kid, house train a dog. It's hard. We learn to control, right? Rest and digest. We control the digestion. And then in the same way, we have to control our anger. There's never an appropriate time to crap yourself. And there's never an appropriate time to lose your temper.
Again, that's easy to say. But when we realize losing our temper is just like crapping ourselves. It's like losing control. Then we're on the proper path. Nobody ever respects your temper tantrum. Nobody ever respects your losing control. They [00:30:00] respect your calm. And we talked today about the quiet professional, but we talked about , the laconic Spartan, the stoic Roman, the inscrutable samurai, the stiff upper lip Brit.
And today we call it the quiet professional. Those are all different. We're saying the same thing. Self control. Nobody respects your temper tantrum. They respect your calm. Now again, forgive yourself. Give yourself permission to be human. But when you lose control, take a deep breath and say, Next time I'm going to be a better person.
Next time I can do a better job. Some of the tools we use to calm ourselves down is to breathe and exercise. Big swig of water.
Big swig of water is a powerful tool that pulls us from fight or flight to rest and digest. It shows the body, Hey, we're safe. And the big swig of water is a powerful tool that allows you to regain control from fight or flight, the sympathetic nervous system, pull us down to parasympathetic. And to take those things that are not ordinarily under control and bring them under control, that's what makes us human.
That's what makes us human. [00:31:00] Take all the things that, that animals don't control and for us to learn to put those things under control. The autonomic nervous system doesn't have to be automatic. Fight or flight, rest and digest, bringing these things under control. That's what makes us a better human being, a better parent, a better grandparent.
Most of us, that's why we're better grandparents than we are parents. Yeah, how many of y'all got kids? How many of y'all have looked at your parents with your kids and said, are you the same ones that raised me? No, they're not. They're at least 20 years old or more mature. It's called maturity. We want to get it as fast as we can.
So we forgive ourselves when we lose it, but we keep striving for the standard of self control, to love God and to love people. And that's the path that we want to follow, as the sheepdog, as the protector. Does that make sense? It's a lot fast and furious there. Yeah. 
Kellene: Oh, , it's a masterclass in the making and I'm just thrilled to be here.
So , let me switch gears again on you. You and I had a little conversation before we got started [00:32:00] and I really do want to explore this topic. You're talking about rest and digest. Let's talk about that importance of that rest cycle, about that sleep cycle that you elucidated earlier. 
Dave: Yeah, that's worthy of a whole podcast all by itself.
And it's so important. Absolutely. I had a paper, if the Kennedy becomes, our, , The director of, it looks like President Trump is going to put, Bobby Kennedy in charge of, uh, of our nation's health program. And I had a close contact with him, also presented a paper at a global conference.
We're in the middle. of a global epidemic of sleep deprivation. The incredibly addictive video games, the incredibly addictive social media, binge watching TV shows, text messaging. All these things steal our sleep. The head of Netflix said their competitor is sleep. The corporate policy at Netflix is to steal your sleep.
But what we don't understand is this. If you're sleep deprived, you're far more likely to commit suicide. [00:33:00] Worldwide, there's an explosion of suicides. At ages we never dreamed of. Tweenagers, 10, 11, 12 year olds, teenage girls suicide rate has tripled. And here's parenting 101 for the 21st century. When you send your kid to bed at night, take their cell phone away from them.
No laptop in the room, no cell phone in the room, they've got to go to the room and sleep. So a cop came up to me during a break in a class. He said, I had one of those tweenators. He said she was a good girl. She was an A student. She said, dad, it's embarrassing. You don't have to take my phone every night.
You can trust me. Family policy. Phone goes in the charger, go to bed. He's okay. I trust you. Keep your cell phone. Said a little while later, she took her life. So my little girl took her life. And we never knew the hell she was living in until we looked at the text messages on her cell phone. Night after night of ceaseless, relentless, vicious bullying.
And he can't just ignore that. We're not wired that way. He said it was heart rending. She had all night long, night after night, trying to [00:34:00] defend herself, trying to find somebody to stand up for her. He said, yeah, I immediately understood. My little girl was bullied to death. What I didn't understand until now, she was sleep deprived, tormented, and bullied to death in front of my eyes, and I let it happen.
He said, I can't ignore that text message in the middle of the night, how he's picked her case too. He said, the one thing on earth I can remember from my little girl was take her phone every night, let her turn off all the bad stuff on the floor. The link between sleep deprivation and suicide is huge now talk about suicide real quick right now It is impossible for you to take your life You will fight to the last breath to preserve your life, but to overcome that it's almost impossible So what we found out is alcohol across the centuries Alcohol is a catalyst.
You have all these problems, you add alcohol, that makes it possible to overcome this powerful resistance to kill yourself. Well, sleep deprivation is the same thing. Being [00:35:00] sleep deprived is just like being drunk. You got all these problems, you add sleep deprivation, and all of a sudden you're able to take your life.
Sleep deprivation is a key factor in traffic deaths. Globally, decade after decade, we brought traffic deaths down. Airbags, seatbelts, medical tents, now traffic deaths have exploded. What's the one new factor the global epidemic of sleep deprivation It's a huge factor in the opiate epidemic. Why opiates prescription opiates have always been there fentanyl's an opiate Fentanyl kills 70 80 000 americans a year.
Why opiates? Well sleep deprivation creates chronic pain Sleep deprivation is a key factor in mental illness. Just do a long line search sleep deprivation mental illness Boom sleep deprivation suicide. Boom sleep deprivation practicum. Boom. You're just like it's all there You And it's a key factor in obesity.
It's a key factor in high blood pressure. It's a key factor in Alzheimer's and dementia. It's all there. People say, Oh, I'll [00:36:00] sleep when I'm done. You have a decade of Alzheimer's first, yeah. So the first step in being a survivor, the first step in being a prepper begins right here. But this body to be prepared, what it's going to fix on your body needs air, food, water, and sleep.
Now, your sleep is a biological blind spot. Your body doesn't know how to give you enough sleep. Your body's good to get an air, food, water, check out that air for a while, go with that food or water for a while and your body will take over. But the body doesn't know how to make us get enough sleep. Cause it always happened naturally throughout human history.
Every night without fail, it got nothing to do. Here we go. A little sex, a little talking, rolled and went to sleep. We didn't have to make ourselves sleep. It happened naturally. And then we admitted the light bulb and the television and the incredibly addictive video games and the incredibly addictive social media.
And suddenly we have all these exciting things to do. There is nothing tough. There's nothing macho, but going without sleep. Any 12 a [00:37:00] slumber party can do it. The professional thing, the proper thing, the right minded thing is to make sure you get enough sleep. As an adult, You need at least seven hours of sleep a night.
And we need to teach our children how much sleep they need, and they sleep in total darkness or with a sleep mask, and cut off caffeine shortly after lunch. Just those three things are the 90 percent solution. Sleep in total darkness, cut off caffeine shortly after, shortly after lunch. Have a target of how much time you need to sleep and as an adult you need at least seven hours of sleep a night This global epidemic of sleep deprivation is destroying us and violent crime alcohol and violent crimes related and sleep deprivation violent crimes related So it's all there and there's this dynamic that we must protect ourselves our family from And this industry wants to sell this stuff to children to your children and to steal the sleep.
So i'm in ukraine You I've got a brief window to tell these people, what about my son, what [00:38:00] about my grandson, right? And I covered the thing that we talked about on perceptual distortions in combat. And I covered sleep. And if you're sleep deprived and a traumatic event happens, you're five times more likely to have PTSD, you're nine times more likely to have depressive depression, and seven times more likely to have suicidal ideation if you're sleep deprived and the bad stuff happens.
And how critical it is to have a sleep management on the battlefield So one guy is like a company commander level, you know two years of terrible war He said well, you never won the russian gonna bomb you can't sleep because you never won They're gonna bomb you so I play video games instead. It turns out looking like dude Do you just hear what you're saying?
You don't understand what you're saying. You didn't sleep through anything We've been told veterans will tell you you're tired enough to sleep through anything Another guy said I have terrible nightmares another company command level. You know terrible nightmares you And so I, I watch, I watch movies so I don't have to sleep and don't have nightmares.
My friends are gonna go, ooh dude, did you hear yourself? Not sleeping does [00:39:00] not make your nightmares any better. It's making everything worse. So this, this battle of getting enough sleep on the modern battlefield is huge. Throughout human history, when we fought and there was nothing happening, we went to sleep.
We caught up on our sleep, but now when there's nothing happening, they play video games They don't they download movies. They get on social media when what we really desperately desperate need to do is get this sleep So that's a global epidemic of sleep deprivation as a prepper It's a major threat to you and your family it begins preparation begins right here and right here Have your mind and body ready is the first step And getting sufficient sleep for you and your family is the single greatest challenge out there.
 As the world is coming at us 100 miles an hour. Yeah, 
Kellene: well, let's get one more question in to you. Before I forget, you know, you talk all over the world. Let's make sure that people know how , [00:40:00] to catch themselves some Dave Grossman. You have, you have a big thing coming up in April, , that we were talking about before the show.
Why don't we share that with folks? 
Dave: Thank you, Kellene. Thanks for asking. I'm on the road a couple hundred days a year. I mean, I'm in Ukraine. Looks like I'm going to be going to Israel, doing some work there. Across America, mostly law enforcement, school safety, and, and military. But I have got one subset of what I do.
It's very, very useful and very, very powerful on house of worship security team training. It really applies to all sheepdogs. And on April 24th to 26th, we will be in Mount Vernon on a Bulletproof House of Worship presentation. We'll put it on my website. My website is GrossmanOnTruth. com. We'll post it out on the website down the road.
But, 24th through the 26th of April coming up in the coming year, Mount Vernon, Illinois. And, I really recommend that one. I'll have the time to, to get a lot of my good information out [00:41:00] there and have the mind, body and spirit ready for that, that moment of truth. In the meanwhile, hey, you can read the books, you know, go to my website, grossmanontruth.
com, grossmanontruth. com, read the books, you know. 
Kellene: , I have to order two more. It looks like by I've got to get your On Hunting. , and I definitely want to read the spiritual warrior one. So let me get one last question in, parting words that you might have parting words of wisdom with all your expertise for those who want to live more self reliant, more self sufficient.
Dave: Okay. Number one, violent crime, don't cop a pity party. Violent crime is the single most psychologically toxic thing that people face. Number two, it's exploded to levels never seen before. We're functioning at levels of violence, never seen before. The explosion of violence, the Ferguson effect, where the cops are, the bad guys, the criminals are the good guys.
The Ferguson effect, we. When 2015, 2016, we saw the worst explosion of violence, as bad as anything we've ever seen. By the way, [00:42:00] medical technology is holding down the number of dead people. The number of murdered people under represents the problem. But then I got a slide that will show you what happened in 2020.
that makes the Ferguson effect pale by comparison. Started in May of 2020, the George Floyd effect. This whole idea, the 2020s explosion of violence, unlike anything we've ever seen before. Whole idea that the cops are evil and the criminals are the good guys. Please, if you're out there and you're being pulled in that direction by the sick narrative that the cops are evil and the cops are the oppressors.
No, no, they're not. The cops are the bodyguard for the poor. The rich will always have security. That the poor people in their inner cities, they have nothing, they've been told the cops are evil, and they've got record number of cops murdered in the line of duty. Last year, 2023, the all time record number of cops shot in the line of duty.
Body armor, medical technology, keep them alive. But that should be news all 10 record number of people shot 2020 violence exploded like [00:43:00] nothing We've ever seen before and then went up a couple a little bit more the following year It really really is bad. It's orders of magnitude worse anything we've ever seen And you're not crazy, you're not paranoid if you prepare for the reality of a violent world.
Believe in who you are, believe in what you do, prepare yourself mind, body, and spirit, have the tools to defend yourself and your loved ones, but it begins up here. It begins with having enough sleep and have the mind and body properly fueled and ready for what's coming. Absolutely. 
Kellene: And that's a great note for us to end on.
Folks, we've definitely been enriched here today. Thank you so much, Dave, for joining us. And like you said, we've definitely got another show in store for you in the future. So thank you. Thank you very much. 
Dave: God bless America. Thank you. 
Kellene: Take care. Bye bye.
Thanks for joining us today on Preparedness Pro. I hope you enjoyed yourself and learned something new. Want more [00:44:00] preparedness inspiration? Join our live shows every Tuesday and Thursday at 11 a. m. Eastern on YouTube or Facebook at Preparedness Pro, where we can answer your questions live. Looking for a community of like minded people who understand that preparedness is about freedom?
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