Tactical Tangents

There is an art and science to learning a new skill. Whether you are picking up new hobbies and trying to improve performance at essential job tasks, there are some tricks and concepts to understand to break plateaus and keep training fun. We cover crawl walk run, the balance between simple and technical, developing a growth mindset, and embracing the suck.    Find us on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube) @TacTangents You can join the conversation in our Facebook Discussion Group. Find all of our episodes, articles, some reading list ideas, and more on our website www.tacticaltangents.com Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe. Intro music credit Bensound.com

We say that we should put Service before Self, but it's more than just a mantra. Where the rubber meets the road is all in how we develop implicit trust among teammates so that we know where each other is going to be and what they are going to do when the going gets tough. We can accomplish this with the intentional application of Standards, Contracts, and good Debriefs.  It's one thing that we all get along, but real trust isn't something that can be assumed as a given--we've got to earn it. Building trust in teams has a lot to do with the often unwritten social contracts that help us get on the same page about our roles and responsibilities. We have to know that everyone is going to put the mission before their own personal interests to really build harmony and a combined effort that is greater than than the sum of its individual parts. Find us on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube) @TacTangents You can join the conversation in our Facebook Discussion Group. Find all of our episodes, articles,

Wellness isn’t just a soft and fuzzy term bandied about in the Human Resources department. Healthier, happier employees perform better, and in professions where the rubber meets the road, wellness is tactical. The trite concept of Work/Life balance isn’t so trite when lives are on the line. How do you keep yourself all happy and centered and still put in the grind to do the work? Listen to this episode to hear some ideas.   Find us on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube) @TacTangents You can join the conversation in our Facebook Discussion Group. Find all of our episodes, articles, some reading list ideas, and more on our website www.tacticaltangents.com Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe. Intro music credit Bensound.com

When drafting players for your fantasy sportsball team, stats provide an easy benchmark. Just pick the ones with the most home runs, passing yards, and the highest free-throw percentage. It’s a little harder selecting people for your real-life tactical team, but having a similar checklist in mind helps. In this episode Jim and Mike talk about what to look for.   Having a good selection procedure is important for getting the right members on a team. Mike steals a page from advertising, only where an ad man conceptualizes the ideal customer, he’s looking for the ideal SWAT guy. The process could work for any team selection, though. Just think about what the ideal candidate would say, think, do, or feel, and look for those people. Listen to this episode for ideas on how to do just that.   Find us on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube) @TacTangents You can join the conversation in our Facebook Discussion Group. Find all of our episodes, articles, some reading list ideas, and more on our website www.

No team in law enforcement is composed of robotic textbook-following automatons, nor would we want it to be, if we’ve ever found ourselves at 2MPH over the limit. But when a worst-case incident unfolds, we want every first responder to make the right decision at the speed of life, because in those incidents seconds often equal victims. How can we raise the lowest common denominator, so our people make the right decisions quickly without rushing to failure? In this episode Mike and Jim talk about command and control, and teaching decision-making skills to team members. In this way, when everything hits the fan, the right decisions get made fast, and get made at the right level. There’s a reason for supervisors, commanders, and leaders, but it’s important to know when to let subordinates make decisions. Not every incident is The Big One, but nobody’s ready for The Big One if they haven’t been taught in the small ones.   Find us on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube) @TacTangents You can join the

The downsides of sleep deprivation are legion: irritability, poor judgment, even lowered testosterone. Yet the duties of the .mil and LE career fields are well known for demanding odd and/or long hours that can make it hard to get good sleep. Mike talks with Dr. Paul Sargent of O2X, a specialist in human performances and sleep factors, in how to get the good shut-eye. Dr. Sargent retired from a 25 year Navy career that included such exotic postings as being the only psychiatrist in Anbar Province, where he helped stand up the Combat Sleep School. How to maximize healthy sleep hygiene without using drugs that might blunt the tactical edge is his specialty, and in this episode he talks with Mike about the best way we can adapt modern life schedules to bodies that have ancient sleep needs. Links: J. Bryan Sexton: 3 Good Things - https://youtu.be/OYMQYhey08w Find us on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube) @TacTangents You can join the conversation in our Facebook Discussion Group. Find all of our epi

  In the spring of 2018, the city of Austin, Texas was rocked by a string of package bombs, five in all, that killed two and injured five. The story of how local and federal agencies tracked down the perpetrator is almost all open source and a great illustration of how these investigations proceed. Listen to Jim and Mike tell the tale in this episode!   Find us on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube) @TacTangents You can join the conversation in our Facebook Discussion Group. Find all of our episodes, articles, some reading list ideas, and more on our website www.tacticaltangents.com Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe. Intro music credit Bensound.com

Do you know what every great slugger in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown had in common? They all had hitting coaches. Today we have an abundance of riches in the form of internet videos to teach almost any skill, but at some point most everyone will benefit from the feedback of a skilled coach. In this episode Mike and Jim explore the value of coaching in skill building and team leadership.   Whether its an athlete of the conventional sports kind or the tactical variety found on a SWAT team or military base, there’s a tremendous value to be gained from a good coach. How can you spot a good coach? More importantly, what are the indicators of a bad one? How can you be a good coach for the people who look up to you? Listen in and find out! Links: The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey - https://amzn.to/463pWQZ The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle - https://amzn.to/46qviWA The Art of Learning by Joshua Waitzkin - https://amzn.to/3RAEP93 With Winning in Mind by Lanny Bassham - https://amzn.to/3RzwEtC  

  In the world of ugly warrant execution, there are a lot of bad scenarios that have happened with lessons to be learned for people on both sides of the door. In this episode, Mike & Jim break down a notorious recent incident: The 2020 shooting of Breonna Taylor during a narcotics warrant service in Louisville, Kentucky. While it’s about the Breonna Taylor incident, we’re focusing on the tactical issues surrounding the actual warrant service that night, not the plethora of issues that led to it. Risk is always involved in serving a warrant, so how can it best be mitigated for all involved? Remember that having a warrant doesn’t make you any smarter or tactically proficient. The court just gave you permission; the skill department is all on you.   Find us on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube) @TacTangents You can join the conversation in our Facebook Discussion Group. Find all of our episodes, articles, some reading list ideas, and more on our website www.tacticaltangents.com Like what we’re

If you’re a habitual firearms toter, how do you carry to and from places where you can’t carry? Do you? What if it’s someplace where there’s no provision for securing it at your destination? Whether going to and from the neighborhood BJJ gym or visiting a military base, this can be a real dilemma for the carrier. In this episode, Jim and Mike take a hard look at solutions. One of our favorite topics at Tactical Tangents is realistic risk management, and this applies in the personal world as well as the operational one. While “EDC” has turned into a marketing term for everything from watches to para cord bracelets, what do you really carry every day. Listen to this episode for a deep dive into the topic. Remember, millions of people go unstrapped yet remain unclapped every day. Photo credit: Tam at "View From The Porch”, Booksbikesboomsticks.blogspot.com Find us on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube) @TacTangents You can join the conversation in our Facebook Discussion Group. Find all of our epi

In the pop-culture tactical world today it’s common to see Col. Boyd’s Decision Cycle, the famed “OODA Loop”, applied to individuals and their actions, but indeed it has its origins as an institutional concept. If you need to solve problems as a team, or even an institution, it’s important to know how it applies to group tactics and operations. In this episode Mike and Jim dive into just that.     Institutional knowledge and memory are what gets used to solve problems, and that’s why it’s important for an organization to select compulsive problem-solvers as members. Everyone is going to bring their own viewpoint based on their specialty, but it’s important for them to know when the problem is outside of their specialty, as well as how they can contribute when it’s time to get…unconventional. Tune in to learn how to teach your team the difference.   Find us on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube) @TacTangents You can join the conversation in our Facebook Discussion Group. Find all of our episodes,

In any organization it’s almost a tradition to turn and look at the people coming up through the ranks behind you and bemoan how much better things were in the Good Old Days. Of course, things were better then because the people who had come up through the ranks before you helped mentor you into effective operators. In this episode, Jim and Mike talk about how you can pass that mentoring on.   It’s important to feel responsibility for, not just the organization, but also for the people who make it up. Those people include the newest noobs, and if you want to help the organization be effective, mentoring those recruits is essential. Mike and Jim are here to tell you that mentorship isn’t a thing that can be established in an org chart, but has to grow organically, and in this episode, they’ll tell you how you can foster mentoring in a place where it can’t be foisted.   Find us on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube) @TacTangents You can join the conversation in our Facebook Discussion Group. Find

Mike reminds us that “Responsibility to the Community” is not just a slogan on a squad car door in this episode, where he and Jim talk about the necessity of keeping the public informed in a manner that is both helpful to the public and not harmful to ongoing investigations. ”Public Affairs” is more than just a job title, and requires keeping in mind the emotions that surround complex situations.   In a job where having to come to terms with the possibility of inflicting lawful violence, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that most normal people haven’t had those conversations with themselves. Avoiding dehumanizing statements or flippant “FAFO” statements is crucial to effective community relations. In this episode, Jim and Mike discuss the balance between keeping the public informed and protecting information that actually needs protecting for civil or criminal reasons.   Links:  The Elements of Style By William Strunk Jr and E.B. White - https://amzn.to/3rnuWkg The Five Languages of Apology by Gary Ch

In dangerous career fields like the military or law enforcement, there’s an unavoidable tension of priorities between the mission and the safety of the people on the team who need to accomplish it. It’s one thing to say you put your people first, but if it was a safe job, they wouldn’t issue body armor. In today’s episode, Mike and Jim demonstrate the ways this can be a false dichotomy and how to keep everyone on the team on the same page.  It’s important to take care of your people because you can’t do the mission without them, but if the mission doesn’t get done because of an excess of caution, there’s no point in any of y’all being there in the first place. A conundrum, truly! This episode looks at ways to manage the expectations of team members by bringing them up to speed as they come on board, and other considerations to take when (here’s that word again) managing highly motivated people.   Links: Scouting, For Boys by Rabert Baden Powell - https://amzn.to/43CsVPb Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crush

Bombs are scary. You can’t shoot back at an explosion or talk it into surrendering or leaving you alone. But you can learn ways to spot the bad guy’s device before it does its thing. In today’s episode, Jim and Mike delve into some basics of the hows, whys, and wheres of improvised explosive devices to help you develop a risk picture based on likelihood and severity. Just like there are certain weather conditions that are likely to breed hurricanes or other severe storms, we’re currently experiencing social weather, both globally and at home, that’s creating favorable conditions for bombers. There are enough angry people, with enough information, and ample opportunity to make things explode. Tune in for some info on what to look for. (Hint: It’s not a bundle of red sticks taped to an alarm clock with an “ACME” label.)   Links: The Bombs, Bombers, and Bombings of Los Angeles by Michael Digby - https://amzn.to/3J7ROKn Greenwhich Village Townhouse Explosion - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_Village_town

High-stress jobs, such as those in the military or law enforcement fields, tend to attract mission-oriented people, dedicated to the team and the public, who thrive on stress. Well, plants thrive on water, too, but you can still wind up drowning them with too much of it. In today’s episode, Jim and Mike look at job-related burnout, its negative effects on the team, and how to mitigate or avoid it.   In any tight-knit organization, attitudes are contagious, and that goes double for lousy ones. It’s common for the word of hard-chargers attracted to “tactical” work to brag about the amount of time they put in, for example, the number of hours worked, and treat it as a benchmark. But the more the workload piles up, the more easily frustrated you get, and that can feed the bad attitude spiral. Listen in as we talk about ways to reduce work-related fatigue and maintain a healthy work/life balance…tactically.   Find us on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube) @TacTangents You can join the conversation in

Part of our mission here at Tactical Tangents is to overcome the “tactical fantasy”, and in this episode, Mike and Jim talk about avoiding one of the most pernicious ones. It’s easy in a world full of tacticool training classes to get focused on the sort of threats to ourselves and loved ones that jump out of the bushes and can be thwarted with kinetic skills when the truth is you probably already know the person you’re most likely to have to pepper spray. The statistical fact of the matter is that most victimization comes from people who look like us and are already in our social circles. That’s extra true about sex crimes, and super extra true about sex crimes against children. Tune in as we discuss teaching ourselves, loved ones, and especially our kids about understanding social norms, establishing boundaries, and the importance of informing someone in authority.   Links: The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker Protecting the Gift by Gavin de Becker Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN): Grooming:

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may be over (for now) but that doesn’t leave us in a world without conflict. While we were hip-deep in the Global War on Terror, major great power competitors have been nursing grievances and feeling rising ambitions and opportunities. In this episode, Jim takes a detailed look at the state of play with respect to Russia and China, and how that could affect the US as a nation, and us as individual citizens.   While neither of our great power opponents would benefit from a shooting war with the United States at this point in time, Jim points out that they are both conducting war by other means; the struggles are already underway. Whether by economic means, attempts to control raw material sources, or meddling with public opinion via social media channels, it’s important to be aware of these methods. Listen to this episode to have it all laid out.   Links: War Without Rules by Robert Spalding War with Russia by Sr Richard Shirreff US National Security Strategy   Find us on socia

In both the military and law enforcement universes, there’s often an understandable amount of friction between the people out where the action is and those who help them get there and support them in their work. In this episode, Jim and Mike discuss ways to smooth cooperation between the people behind the scenes and the officer on the street or the pilot in the seat. When you really think about it, everybody’s supporting somebody and nobody’s completing the mission alone. Learning to distinguish between your “boss” and your “customer” can help you focus on operational success whether you’re the one calling in the air support, flying the plane, or keeping the plane flyable. As the saying goes, the chicken is involved in breakfast while the pig is committed…but breakfast ain’t happening without both doing their jobs. Links: Randy Pausch Achieving Childhood Dreams   Find us on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube) @TacTangents You can join the conversation in our Facebook Discussion Group. Find all o

In a cool tactical podcast, everybody wants to talk about a gunfight and nobody wants to talk about getting t-boned in an intersection on the way to the gunfight. This episode features Mike & Jim, who’ve bent enough fenders between them to have some advice to offer, talking about the realities of driving. Whether you’re driving the government’s vehicle or your own private citizen chariot, realistic Operational Risk Management applies behind the wheel too.    Not only does viewing driving from an Operational Risk Management standpoint apply to doing the high-speed stuff while sawing at the wheel to keep it between the ditches while running code, it entails a lot more aspects. How do you manage your driving to take into account the possibility of road rage from other motorists? Do you stay on top of vehicle maintenance in order to keep from getting stranded in a desert or a blizzard…or stuck on the side of the road and having to deal with whatever sketchy weirdo stops to “help”? Listen in as these topics an