Patrick Van Horne, Author at The CP Journal

Weekend Reading and a Podcast

August 7, 2015 in Books and Resources

Here is the weekly reading list of articles that we found to be valuable.

1. “The Writer’s Most Important Skill.” This article by Steven Pressfield looks at the one very controllable element to becoming a successful artist and entrepreneur.

2. “How To Avoid Getting Pickpocketed.” This article from the Art of Manliness provides a look at some of the techniques that criminals and pickpockets use to separate you from your cash.

3. “Why It Takes So Long To Board an Airplane and How To Fix It.” Interesting, thought provoking, and something you will think about anytime you fly.

4. The “New Rules” for musicians by Bob Lefsetz. While the rules are written about how to get ahead in the music industry, the applications to startups are readily apparent.

5. “Entrepreneurship: The Purest Form of Unconventional Warfare.” An article written by EM Burlingame at the Havok Journal about the parallels between military operations and getting a company off the ground.

Want to listen to a podcast?

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to talk to Jordan Harbinger and Jason DeFillippo from the Art Of Charm Podcast about “Left of Bang” and situational awareness. They’ve had some incredible guests on their podcast and put out some great interviews, and once we started talking, it became clear why.

I had a lot of fun on this one and there are two ways you can listen to it:

– On their site which you can find here.

– Download it from iTunes here.

Applying Maslow’s Hierarchy: The Needs of an Investor

August 5, 2015 in Applying The Observations

One of the things that we are always on the lookout for at The CP Journal are practical applications of topics that we teach in our courses that we hadn’t previously considered. As one of our company’s goals is to make the lessons in the Tactical Analysis program as relevant to our students as we can, having examples from a wide array of fields increases the likelihood that someone coming through our course is able to successfully transition the concepts from the classroom to their lives. In a NextView Ventures podcast that I was listening to last week, Kathryn Minshew, the CEO of The Muse, provided one such example when she explained how she uses Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to plan out meetings with her company’s investors and board members.

If you are unfamiliar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the theory is that people have predictable needs that they are motivated to fulfill throughout their lives. As I’ve written about in the past, these needs are grouped into five categories that are often visually displayed in the form of a pyramid, with a person’s most basic needs making up the bottom of the structure and their highest motivations located at the very top. The underlying premise is that because a person’s fundamental requirements are housed at the bottom of the pyramid, if the needs of a level below where a person is currently operating are no longer being fulfilled, a person is going to drop back down to the appropriate level of the pyramid to reestablish themselves before they can climb back up. Maslow’s Hierarchy is a topic that comes up in our Elite Program as we teach our clients how to apply behavioral analysis to deescalate situations with the goal of getting people to calm down.

As I listened to Kathryn Minshew explain to Jay Acunzo, the show’s host, how she uses Maslow’s Hierarchy to sequence the information she presents to her board of directors, I immediately saw how her application of the theory relates directly to the protectors who are operating with the goal of getting left of bang. First, let’s take a look at how Continue reading »

Weekend Reading: 7/31/15

July 31, 2015 in Books and Resources

Here are some articles that we thought were worth passing along:

1. An article from Fred Wilson at avc.com about the value of changing your perspective after spending a winter “On the Beach.” If you don’t change your viewpoint every once in a while, you might always see the same things.

2. An article from Mark Suster at bothsidesofthetable.com about “What You Can Learn From A Scorpion.” He talks about what happens with startups when their big established competitors decide to crush them. There are a number of parallels to the life of protectors, police officers and service-members.

3. Here is an article from James Altucher about “What Happens When You Don’t Care.” Here are 6 things that he learned and changed in his life when he stopped caring about things outside of his control.

4. “How Boulder Became America’s Startup Capital.” A look at some of the history that has allowed Boulder, CO to have 6x more high tech startups per capita than the nation’s average, and a wide range of businesses across a number of industries.

5. “The Nerd’s Guide To Learn Everything Online.” A great TED talk video by John Green about how online education can change the way those seeking to better themselves can learn.

From 6 Domains To 4 Pillars: The Evolution of Behavioral Assessments

July 27, 2015 in Background Information

One of the questions that we get asked the most frequently when we present our course is whether there are any differences between the behaviors that we discuss in Left of Bang, and those that we teach in the Tactical Analysis program. There is and there isn’t. As we are only a few weeks away from releasing our Tactical Analysis Advanced Course online through our Academy, we wanted to take a minute to explain to those who have both read the book and gone through our online programs how our two ways of presenting this information are related.

BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front)

The individual behaviors that make up the Tactical Analysis program are fundamentally the same as those that we talk about in Left of Bang.
Between the Tactical Analysis Program and the book, these behaviors are simply packaged differently. In Left of Bang, we teach these behaviors as the six domains. In our Tactical Analysis course, we teach these same behaviors as the four pillars of observable behavior.

The Explanation

If you have read Left of Bang, you have learned about the six domains of observable behavior that the Marine Corps uses to assess human behavior. These six domains are taught and referred to as:

Kinesics: The study of body movement, which, upon being analyzed to uncover the meaning of the gesture, posture, or expression, becomes body language.
Biometric Cues: The body’s physiological responses to stress.
Proxemics: Assessments made regarding interpersonal separation and body placement.
Geographics: The relationship between people and their environment.
Iconography: The visual representation of a person’s (or group’s) beliefs and affiliations.
Atmospherics: The collective sense of safety in an area or situation.

The reason why the domains are broken down into six groups in Left of Bang is because each of them comes from a different field of behavioral science. As the U.S.M.C. was building the behavioral analysis portion of Combat Hunter, they needed a way to break observable human behavior down into its component parts so that Marines could better understand what they were seeing and be able to communicate those observations to others effectively.

The reason that The CP Journal teaches these behaviors in our Tactical Analysis program using four pillars instead of the six domains is because we noticed a trend in how our students used and applied these concepts in real life situations following our courses. The wording that we often heard wasn’t in line with the terminology we were teaching and we realized that, if there was a disconnect between the classroom and the street, it meant we weren’t empowering our nation’s protectors to perform at the level we were striving for. We noticed that people weren’t using the words kinesics and biometric cues separately, but that they were naturally tying both of them together to make an assessment about an “individual person,” leading us to call our first pillar “individuals.” We noticed that they weren’t observing proxemics, but they were making observations and talking about “groups of people,” leading us to name our second pillar “groups.” Since the goal of behavioral analysis is to improve the way people make decisions, both through deliberate searches and through intuitive assessments, we wanted to make sure that our behavioral pillars were mirroring the way people naturally look at and talk about the people, the environment and the situations they find themselves in. If there is a disconnect between the deliberate and intuitive searches, it will restrict even the most interested students from using these concepts in the types of situations where they need them the most, when there is a threat present.

Both the Combat Hunter program and Tactical Analysis have the same requirement of ensuring that all of the behaviors taught are backed by science in order to ensure objectivity and accuracy. As the by-product of that capability provides the operators, police officers and protectors on the ground with the ability to articulate and explain what led them to make a decision, the change in the way the behaviors are packaged provides a much more clear and concise terminology to ensure that everyone has the same understanding of a situation. With a shared understanding of the behavior being observed, why that person or group of people was assessed in the first place and the science leading to those observations, it no longer matters if you were on scene or not, but you can attain that common operational picture that is sought after by the professionals in each of our markets.

The Four Pillars: A Translation Guide

To better understand how we teach these behaviors in the Tactical Analysis program and how to connect the book and the course, here is a short guide:

Pillar #1: How We Assess Individuals

From Left of Bang: Kinesics, Biometric cues, and Personal Iconography

Pillar #2: How We Assess Groups

From Left of Bang: Proxemics

Pillar #3: How We Assess the Environment

From Left of Bang: Geographics and Environmental Iconography

Pillar #4: How We Assess the Collective

From Left of Bang: Atmospherics

Wrapping Up

As a company and as instructors, our sole focus is centered on how well people can apply the lessons taught in the program to real life situations immediately upon leaving the classroom. We don’t teach for the sake of teaching. We do it to provide the best support possible, and we are always looking for ways to improve our delivery. Transitioning from six domains to four pillars is one of those improvements that we have made to our Tactical Analysis program since delivering our first course in 2011.

We are able to make these changes, updates and improvements to our core program because we aren’t government contractors. We are entrepreneurs. For the members of the military who come through our program, this ability to change and make improvements doesn’t exist in many of the standing training programs that you typically attend and are taught by government contractors or managed under bureaucratic processes. For those programs, the ability to make changes can be a challenging process and, for many in the chain of command, maintaining the status quo is easier than the effort required to adjust learning objectives, method of delivery and packaging of concepts. While people from our other markets might read this paragraph and ask, “Why wouldn’t you improve your program based on the feedback from students and performance indicators?” unfortunately, that isn’t always the case in the military or federal law enforcement agencies.

In our commitment to serve our nation’s protectors in all fields, not only will we continue to look for every opportunity to improve our courses, but we will also keep you updated as to our explanations for the change and the reasons why we make those decisions. For our students who purchase our online training programs, this is also why you have lifetime access to our courses. If you come through our course, you shouldn’t be limited to only seeing our current version, but should be able to see the versions that continue to get refined and improved over time. These changes often come directly from your feedback.

Thanks for choosing to train with us.

Weekend Reading: 7/24/15

July 24, 2015 in Books and Resources

Here are some articles that we’ve been reading and wanted to pass along:

1. “Billy Beane on Making Better Decisions, Challenging Entrenched Thinking, and Avoiding Biases.” A great article from “Farnam Street” about the answers that Billy Bean gave during a conference this past April.

2. “Why You Can’t Buy A Car On Nissan.com.” An article from “Now I Know,” about how Uzi Nissan, the owner of Nissan Computer, was sued by Nissan Motors over a website domain name and why you can’t buy a car on nissan.com.

3. “Don’t Try To Fake The Language.” Talking in clichés and choosing words that you wouldn’t normally use doesn’t make you look like an insider, it causes you to look fake. This article from Brad Feld is about the need to just be you when speaking.

4. “CEO Shadow For A Day.” An article posted on Brad Feld’s site from Zach Rosen, the CEO at Pantheon about his experience shadowing another CEO. The takeaways are easily applicable to any field and learning from peers outside of your organization.

5. “Moving to where the price is right.” Having relocated the company from New York City to Boulder last year, this article on Urban Land about why people are leaving large cities and moving to smaller medium-sized cities caught our attention.

Rebalancing From The Middle East to China: A Look At Guerrilla Warfare

July 21, 2015 in Books and Resources

Being a Global War on Terror era Marine, I recently came to realize that my understanding of Asian military history has been limited primarily to studying the Marine battles on the island-hopping campaign during World War II. As the Department of Defense continues to shift focus and “rebalance” their efforts on China and North Korea, I decided to re-read Mao Tse-Tung’s book, On Guerrilla Warfare. While I believe that a full-scale war with China in the future is still a long shot, there are three lessons that Marines and soldiers can take away from Tse-Tung’s work as they prepare for a potential deployment to or war in Asia sometime in the future.

1. The Role of the Guerrilla

In the first few chapters of On Guerrilla Warfare, Mao Tse-Tung drives home his view that guerrilla warfare exists to Continue reading »

Weekend Reading: 7/3/15

July 3, 2015 in Books and Resources

Here are some articles we read this week that we thought were valuable and wanted to pass on for your 4th of July weekend:

This past May, the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing released a report with their recommendations for police officers and departments to improve the level trust between the public and law enforcement while effectively reducing crime. While their six pillars are discussed from a strategic perspective, they are concepts that we feel officers should be aware of. You can find the report here.
The Matheny Manifesto, an open letter from a baseball coach to the parents of his athletes, has garnered a bit of a following lately as it lays out not only his expectations for his 10 and 11 year old players, but also the parents.
A research article from “Risk Analysis,” about the behaviors and judgements of terrorists in choosing their targets. While many sources discuss the target selection process as a perfectly rational process where only the target that provides the biggest payoff at the lowest cost is chosen, the authors show the role that emotion plays in this process and how satisfactory targets are chosen over the best available option. You can download the article from the journal here.
Here are 10 things that James Altucher learned from Richard Branson. Leading off with the premise that “all successful people started off knowing nothing,” he shows why he is learning how Branson built his business.
Looking to start a career in private security? Here are some tips from Ed Hinman, the director of recruitment, selection and training at Gavin de Becker and Associates.

“Left of Bang” Turns One

June 29, 2015 in Books and Resources

This month marked the one-year anniversary of the release of our book, Left of Bang: How the Marine Corps’ Combat Hunter Program Can Save Your Life. Through the end of June, the book has received over 150 reviews across various distributors (Amazon, Amazon’s international sites, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads, and iTunes amongst others), and has garnered the attention of many organizations that we are humbled to now consider partners in our endeavor to eliminate all violent acts from occurring. My coauthor, Jason Riley, and I can’t thank those who have taken the time after reading the book to go online and leave overwhelmingly positive comments and ratings enough.

The book would absolutely not have been as big of a success without the great support of our publisher, Black Irish Books. Steven Pressfield, Shawn Coyne and Callie Oettinger helped us turn an extremely rough manuscript into a book that we can truly be proud of.

While Black Irish has helped us get the book out the door, we wanted to take a moment to thank those who have helped us raise public awareness for Left of Bang. Below is a list of all of the websites that willingly reviewed the book for us or were gracious enough to interview us. We also acknowledge people like Jeff Chudwin, Randy Meyers, Linda Langarek, Lou Hayes and numerous others have helped to spread the word.

There are three people I’d like to specifically highlight for conducting interviews with us about Left of Bang. They have generated a great deal of interest and buzz in not only the book but also our Tactical Analysis courses here at The CP Journal.

Brett McKay from the Art of Manliness

Brett posted the podcast of our conversation in October of 2014 and used Left of Bang as a primary source for a great article that he wrote, titled, “How to Develop the Situational Awareness of Jason Bourne.” The combination of our podcast with Brett and his citing of Left of Bang in his article have caused the AoM to become the number one referring webpage to our site.

Scott Mann from The Stability Institute

There are few people who are more committed to supporting our nation’s military and ensuring our national security than Scott, which has made it a great honor to get to sit down with him for an interview about Left of Bang.

Chris Maloney from CauseEngine

I was lucky to sit down with Chris right as the book was coming out and get to explain the different sections of the book, why we felt the material was so important and talk about a number of issues that impact veterans. You can find the interview here.

We would also like to take a minute to recognize the writers and publications that took the time to review Left of Bang and let their readers and audiences know how to find a copy of the book. The people who have reviewed the book come from a wide variety of industries and fields and we couldn’t be more humbled to get to support their efforts to prevent violence. Here are the links to some of these reviews. We hope that you will visit the following sites to see the other great work that these writers post.

Ed Hinman from Gavin de Becker and Associates in a 2-part review

Tony Scotti at the International Security Driver’s Association and Vehicle Dynamics Institute

Fred Leland at LESC.net

The Force Science Journal

Protective Concepts

Uri from RedTeams.net

Chris Pendas at Staying Safe Self Defense

Jeff Mount from Krav Maga Maryland

Chris Kelley

Leanne from Grace For Elle

William Lind from The Traditional Right

The original goal of Left of Bang was to ensure that we could assist those who continue to volunteer, serve and willingly go into harms way. When we released the book, we gave away more than 10,000 copies to different military units across all of the branches as well as police departments around the country to show our support to their mission. To those of you defending our freedoms at home and abroad, thank you. While we hope that Left of Bang helps each of you get further and further left of bang, if there is anything we can ever do to better support you, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any questions or comments.

For those of you who haven’t yet read Left of Bang and are looking to pick up a copy for yourself or for a loved one, there are a few ways to order:

Weekend Reading: 6/26/15

June 26, 2015 in Books and Resources

Here are some articles we read this week that you might find interesting:

“So You Want To Be A PLA Expert?” An article from War On The Rocks with recommended reading to become an expert on China’s military.
“The Tension Created By Stretch Goals.” An article from Farnam Street about the impact that unattainable goals has on an organization, especially within sales team.
“Just Plane Awesome.” An article from Now I Know about how Southwest Airlines lost a copyright battle in an arm wrestling competition without a single lawyer involved.
“Searching For Happiness.” An article from the Virtus Group about the role that repeated exposure to the negative situations faced by police officers plays on long term happiness.
“How To Impress An Interviewer.” A Medium article about how to demonstrate you are proactive and self-aware.

Changing The Negative Narrative: How the 20-60-20 Theory Can Improve Public Perception

June 18, 2015 in Veterans, Business, and Security

This article was also published in the Journal of Illinois Tactical Officer’s Association.

Public perception of and support for law enforcement is a “point in time” statistic. It isn’t fixed or written in stone. It is something that can be influenced and improved or it can deteriorate and decline, but it isn’t permanent. I know how frustrating it can be for many of the 1.2 million law enforcement officers in America[1] to be judged because of the actions of a few people. It was no different for the 1.4 million members of the military who were judged because of what eleven soldiers did at Abu Ghraib. While national news outlets have been effective at shaping the current negative perception of police officers, that image does not have to endure. In the wake of the Baltimore riots this past April, allow me to provide an approach and a method to police officers who want to rebuild trust and support in the communities they patrol and overcome the negative narrative.

The 20-60-20 Theory is a framework that I recommend law enforcement officers consider when seeking to earn the trust of the neighborhoods they work in. The 20-60-20 Theory helps to define things that you can control and should in turn focus on, as well as the things that you can’t control and shouldn’t spend time dealing with. The 20-60-20 Theory is built off the Pareto Principle, which is often discussed as the “80-20 Rule,” which says that, for many events, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. If you were to apply the 80-20 Rule to business, it would say that 80% of a company’s revenue comes from 20% of their customers. Another example is that 20% of a company’s employees cause 80% of their problems. If you apply a standard distribution to the 80-20 Rule, you would create a bell curve with an equal 20% of the population on each end of the spectrum and a remaining 60% of the population in the middle, as shown in the diagram.

From Theory To Policing

When you apply the 20-60-20 Theory to law enforcement, this principle shows that there is going to be 20% of the population that is never going to support police officers. There is simply nothing Continue reading »

How To Evaluate A Plan

June 4, 2015 in Learning About Learning

The career path for many protectors in the security industry often starts with a position as an operator on the ground. Eventually, there is usually a promotion to a position as a security manager or a detail team leader. As a new manager in one of these roles, the rising stars of the security industry then face one of the most challenging situations that leaders can face in any field. How do you balance the professional development of the members on your team without compromising the security of the building or the principal you are tasked with protecting? Progressing from the ranks of the operator to a team leader comes with a steep learning curve and is a transition in which the new manager must be able to maintain this balance. Keeping in mind that intuition, as defined by the father of recognition-primed decision-making, Dr. Gary Klein, “depends on the use of experience to recognize key patterns to recognize key patterns that indicate the dynamics of the situation” (Klein, 31), the question security leaders to answer is, how do you develop the judgment and critical thinking capabilities of the members of your team? How do you evaluate someone else’s plan without micromanaging and stunting their development?

There is a right way and a wrong way to assess the effectiveness of someone else’s plan of attack. The right way is to use the situation as a teaching experience. The wrong way is to hear the plan that someone created and give him or her a Continue reading »

Distance and Threats – An Unpublished Section from “Left of Bang”

May 2, 2015 in Background Information

The below article was originally written as an appendix for “Left of Bang” that we decided to take out during the editing process. However, when looking at the dynamics that exist between the time and space that protectors try to maintain from attackers, the concepts discussed below are why we start analyzing those approaching us.

Appendix: Distance and Threats

Many Marines, police officers, and other military and security personnel overestimate their abilities and skills. Even with extensive training, Marines and others are still at risk when operating in close proximity with people. Behavior based observation provides the skills to quickly identify potential threats from a distance, and take the appropriate action against those potential threats. Often, however, observers will have to get close to those they are observing. What all military and law enforcement personnel must understand is that the closer you are to someone who could potentially do you harm, the more prepared you must be to engage the potential threat. This means being mentally and physically ready to use deadly force if necessary. In this brief section, we will cover four main principles related to distance and threats and discuss how that applies to behavioral analysis and the security postures we must take when operating. Continue reading »

Articles in ITOA News

April 2, 2015 in Veterans, Business, and Security

This week, Jonathan and I had articles published in “ITOA News: The Journal Of The Illinois Tactical Officers Association.”

The longer our friendship with ITOA has continued, the more impressed we are with the resources and training they provide their members. If you are an officer in Illinois, make sure you check them out.

The two articles were:

“What Keeps You Up At Night and What Are You Doing About It?” by Patrick Van Horne. This article looks at how the various “solutions” that police departments are offered in the wake of the increase in officer ambushes and how officers can evaluate their effectiveness.

“The Three Buckets of Control” by Jonathan Smith. This article takes a look at the time people spend focusing on things out of their control and the impact that this has on performance reviews, interviewing, learning and development.

Did you read Left of Bang: How the Marine Corps’ Combat Hunter Program Can Save Your Life?

April 1, 2015 in Training

Test yourself to see how much of the information from the book you retained and can apply in your life. This multiple choice quiz contains questions stemming from the material in each section of the book and highlights some of the most important elements of a behavioral analysis approach to threat recognition.

After the quiz is over, see how you stack up against others who have taken the quiz by viewing the leaderboard.

To take the quiz – head over to our Academy

Have A Video or A Case Study That You Want to Share?

March 19, 2015 in Training

We always hope to improve our courses by making them as specific to the audience we are teaching them to as possible. To continue to improve our classes and to keep them as recent and relevant to current events as possible, we need your help. If you have a video, a story, or an experience, that you would be willing to share that also includes the following elements, please reach out to discuss it with us.

Stories and Experiences:

We are looking for stories and experiences about times when you faced a non-routine event.
We are looking for stories and experiences about when events didn’t go as planned.
We are looking for stories about situations that required special experience.
We ask that this story happened to you personally, or that you introduce us to the person who did experience these events, so that the examples are firsthand and an accurate account of the situation.

Videos:

We are looking for videos of areas typically visited for the purpose of establishing baselines. We prefer that the video length is at least five minutes long so that an observer has sufficient time to analyze the behavior of the people within the area. It is better when the camera is held steady (as opposed to being panned from one side of the area to the other) for that entire time. The focus for these videos is to master the process of establishing a baseline.
Videos of crimes or attacks. We prefer videos where there is footage of the criminal or attacker for at least a few seconds before the attack begins so that we can analyze the pre-event indicators. The longer the criminal is in view before the attack, the better. The focus is on the anomaly.
Videos that are used to assess people using any of the fourteen assessments that goes into the Tactical Analysis program. View a full list of behaviors and assessments here. The focus is on the behaviors themselves.

While preparing to release our new online version of the Tactical Analysis Basic Course, which became available to the public last week, we rebuilt our course from the ground up so that we could quickly incorporate new events, case studies and examples into the program. Our goal was to increase the speed at which current events could be added into the program so that our students could learn from them. As the nature of threats and violence continues to change around the world, staying current and providing relevant examples to those who voluntarily go into harms way is important to us.

Last weekend, a long time friend of The CP Journal sent us an email with information about the attack on the U.S. Ambassador, Mark Lippert, in South Korean. Since I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to research the attack, almost all of in the information in the email was new to me, but I quickly saw why our friend chose to pass it on to us. Even though this person wasn’t giving a first hand account of the attack, because the information related to situational awareness and behavioral analysis in a real life example, we immediately saw how it could benefit our students. Only a few days after receiving the email we recorded a new version of module 3-1, “A Case Study In Threat Recognition,” using the attack and updated the online programs for our private security and military clients. It is because of the relationships we have built with some outstanding professionals that we are able to continue to get the feedback and suggestions necessary to make improvements and updates to our courses.

If you would like to help develop members of the military, police officers and those concerned about their own security, please drop us a line to let us know. We look forward to talking with you.