A Personal Note From Orion

Welcome, amazing listeners, to another insightful episode of the Stellar Life podcast! I’m thrilled to bring you an incredibly important discussion on how to keep yourself and your family safe with my special guest, Tim Larkin.

Tim is a true authority on personal security and violence prevention. With experience from Navy SEAL training and owning a firearms company, he now dedicates his life’s work to teaching principles and methods to minimize the chance of violence impacting your world. His pragmatic yet compassionate approach is centered on heightening awareness and making smart choices.

You’re in for an empowering conversation full of eye-opening strategies for home protection, threat assessment, responsible gun ownership if desired, and most importantly – understanding human nature to steer clear of volatile situations altogether. Tim’s wisdom extends beyond just physical safety, inspiring you to cherish each day, prioritize your well-being, and live your stellar life to the fullest. I’m confident this episode will leave you feeling educated, motivated and fully equipped to safeguard your loved ones with confidence, not fear. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the show!

In This Episode

• [04:11] – Orion welcomes Tim Larkin as he shares his personal experience of growing up surrounded by Marines and learning about violence.
• [11:05] – Orion seeks advice from Tim on how to survive domestic violence.
• [19:47] – Tim discusses the importance of preparation for violence, citing examples of basic measures.
• [22:26] – Tim emphasizes the significance of understanding social violence and how to recognize and respond to it.
• [28:11] – Tim explains some self-defense and home security strategies and warns against seeking violence, as it can lead to dangerous situations.
• [36:59] – Orion asks about the safety measures for securing firearms in the home.
• [41:53] – Tim offers his top tips for living a stellar life.

Jump to Links and Resources

About Today’s Show

Hi there, Tim. Thank you so much for being here.

Hey, thank you so much for having me.

Before we begin, please share a little about yourself, your passion, and why you do what you do today.

It’s funny, it evolved over the years, but it started where, as a young kid, I wanted to understand about dealing with the problem of probably the biggest threat everybody has in their mind, which is a bigger, faster, stronger, individual forcing you to do something you don’t want to do using violence. As a little kid, I grew up in the military. My dad was an officer in the Navy, so we grew up on military bases. I was surrounded by young marines, and they taught us everything when our dads were deployed. I was immersed in that. 

My real change has been to focus on people to make them understand what violence is.

But what’s interesting is now, after doing this for over 35 years professionally, my real change has been to focus on people to make them understand what violence is, what is the tool of violence—it is a tool that anybody can use, when it would ever be appropriate to use it, and more importantly, how to live a life that minimizes the chance that you would ever need to use violence, or violence would come into your life. That’s where I’ve kind of evolved, and that’s where I’m able to talk to audiences like yours. I’m hoping if they don’t know my name, that’s a good thing because normally, 70% of the people come to me after something’s already happened to them. By doing something proactively like this, maybe there’s one or two things that you and I will cover today that will cause somebody to pause and maybe make a better decision.

Right. We live in this world where violence is considered to be extremely bad, like “Don’t come near it. All you need is love, and love is all you need.” Do you think we are raising a softer generation or already a softer generation than we used to be?

I think it depends on where you live. The reason we are here in the US, and the reason not up until probably two years ago was very much the approach, is because we are so good at using violence. We live in a really interesting country. We live in a country surrounded by two huge oceans, so it’s hard for somebody to invade us. We have neighbors to the north and neighbors to the south, even though we have issues with the cartels, where we have pretty friendly neighbors on either side regularly. So, the chances of us being invaded or dealing with what a lot of the world has to deal with are not prevalent. I think it’s one and a half percent of our country participates in the military—very few people in our population understand the threat to the country or what we’d even do if something ever happened.

Violence has kind of crept back in; we have seen civil disruption during the last two years.

We kind of live in a fantasy world here. We know where the bad parts of the cities are, and we know how to avoid them for the most part. But what’s interesting is violence has kind of crept back in. We have seen civil disruption during the last two years, which has been unthinkable here in the US. We saw people calling for police help and being told no help was coming. We saw things happen that we never thought would happen in our cities. It only happened somewhere else. I know you said you’re of Israeli descent. When I go to the Middle East to visit my friends in Israel and other countries, the awareness and the potentiality for violence are very different among those people and how they act.

I think a lot of it is this fantasy that we have here in the US that you can live a peaceful life and there’s no place for violence, and violence is never the answer, and yet that just goes against human nature.

A lot of things are changing, especially now that the borders are open. Not only are cute families with kids coming through the borders, but there are also drug dealers, people from other nations, and probably some people from different terror organizations. If the borders are open, everybody can come—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Do you think we’re going to experience more violence in the US because of that?

Over the years, I’ve had to work with all the agencies. I did much work with customs and border, particularly the border air version of special operations. I’m very familiar with that challenge, especially on the southern border. I don’t know what’s happening leadership-wise that we’ve allowed border security to become political. We’ve allowed it to become truly a national security thing and truly a safety thing. Nobody says we don’t have immigration; it’s just legal immigration. Somehow, we have put it in that it’s okay to do illegal immigration all of a sudden. Somehow, these people are needy and desperate. And yes, there are those people. 

Certain situations are avoidable; it's your choice to respond in a way that either provokes violence or seeks a peaceful solution. Share on X

My friends are all worried about the people you’re describing—young, military-aged males from unique countries. I mean, the increase in military-age Chinese males coming to the US increased some ungodly amount, multiple thousands of degrees more. I think we had a couple hundred years ago, and we had well over 30,000 come in last year. Now, the interesting part about a lot of these guys, and it’s not just the Chinese ones that are coming in, what we focus on here in the US a lot is that, “Oh, they’re all getting these benefits. We’re flying them all over the country. We’re giving them money. They’re going in these things.” Those aren’t the people I’m worried about. Those aren’t the ones because nobody’s talking about these other groups.

Now imagine if you truly are desperate. You’re leaving a country and want to start a new life, and the host country says, “Hey, we’re going to fly you wherever you want to go in this country. We’re also going to give you equivalents of $10,000 in a credit card, and we’re going to give you housing. Why wouldn’t you take that?” There are a ton of people that aren’t taking that. They come in, get processed, and disappear. They don’t take advantage of these offers; they just go, and nobody knows where they are. Those are the groups that nobody’s talking about. We’re not talking about the vast majority of supposedly good people coming, and there are a lot, but we’re playing games that we can’t afford to play right now with our safety, and yet we are. 

I’m sure there’ll be a backlash, and I’m sure there’ll be political problems later down the road. I think this year is going to be a very challenging year for us. Regardless of how the politics work out, nobody will be happy. It’s been an interesting year for me as far as my interviews, preparing people and what I do with my clients. Making really smart decisions is going to be key right now to avoid violence.

I would have been probably one of the people who would have come to you back in the day because I experienced domestic violence. My ex was very verbally abusive, but then, one day, he became physical and really hurt me. I ended up in a hospital, and then I had to pick myself up more emotionally and psychologically than physically because I felt like the emotional violence was even worse for me. But one of the things that I needed to recover from myself and to let go of all this blame, shame and anger was I studied MMA and Aikido because, at that moment, I was like, “Nobody will ever touch me ever again,” and that was extremely empowering for me. Now, I’m happily married to a wonderful man, and we have a child. I’m really out of shape; I don’t remember anything about what I learned. I’m still kind of hyper-vigilant. I can react in emergency situations when needed. For somebody like me, what would be your advice? Should I study martial arts? How do I protect my home? What should I do?

Making really smart decisions is going to be key right now to avoid violence.

Well, it’s twofold. Domestic violence survivors—it’s a tough situation. I would imagine you sought out training during that time because you obviously didn’t feel safe. Somebody who you trusted, you married the man, and at one point, the relationship was great. They betrayed the trust at the most basic level. I’m merely talking from years of working with people. I am not a counselor.

Now, happily, you’re in a great situation. You’ve got a great family life. You’re vigilant. But again, like you said, “Hey, I’m not as focused.” It’s because your family’s safety hasn’t been threatened to the point where you feel that nothing’s really happened to spur you at this stage of the game to start training again. That’s not a bad thing. It’s just something to recognize.

Your motivations for coming to training this time are going to be very different because you do have this great lifestyle, and you’re worried about that black swan event where violence might enter your life.

Predators don't want to go up against somebody prepared and aware. So, do the basics of prevention to eliminate a good portion of being targeted for violence. Share on X

Also, as a Jewish Israeli, after the events of October 7, where babies were burned in their homes—just good people living their lives. All those crazies came. Like the massacre at a music festival that shook my country to the core because we always had to say, “Okay, there is a war.” We know who we are facing. We never had people come and just murder people in their sleep. It was not a war situation. It was so much more disgusting.

Then, what’s going on in the US universities? All the people are protesting; they don’t even know what’s going on. They don’t even know who they’re backing up. They’re just chanting stuff they don’t even understand. They chant from the river to the sea. The river and the sea mean the extermination of Israel. They don’t understand the extremist Muslim agenda to actually take over the whole world—everybody who is not Muslim, and that starts with Jews, going to Christians, and everybody else. 

So, experiencing this as a Jewish person here in the US is very difficult. My whole community is on alert right now. There is security everywhere. There is mega security in every event. People are picking up firearms. I feel like since COVID, this feeling of like there is a threat coming. Something bad is happening. What do you think about that?

I think what everybody had was the equivalent of—it’s an analogy I’ve used for years—you’re driving down a two-way road. There is a yellow line in the middle, and you know you’re going to stay on your side of the road, and the other person will stay on their other side. It works great until somebody doesn’t pay attention to that. Somebody just decides to go across and run right into you, and you’re going, “Well, that’s insane.” Then you sit there and realize, “Well, wait a minute. I have driven my whole life on the assumption that the person on the other line isn’t going to do something ridiculous or crazy. But the only thing I will protect myself with is a painted line.” We quickly realized that these painted lines can be ignored like that, and your world can be turned upside down right away by people who don’t want to play the game and know how to exploit violence.

That’s exactly what happened during COVID. People were just put in their shock factor. They’d never seen anything like this. And then you have the politicians trying to dress up anything other than riots, theft, and destruction. They tried to put it as a lawful protest. We just lost our bearings that way and realized, “Holy crap! We don’t have the protections in place that we thought we did.” If something does happen, a lot of the perpetrators are going to be let out right away.

Very little of the American public is involved in the military. They don’t know what’s happening and don’t understand who you’re fighting.

Then you have the situation internationally that you had in Israel. And to me, the interesting part about that is that they’re very upset about the Israeli response to it, meaning they don’t understand the threat. They don’t understand what it’s like to go. They think they’re up against a logical foe.

Most Americans don’t understand the Middle East’s mentality. It’s so different.

The only guys that get it are the veterans. The veterans have had to go up against hardcore jihadists, people that don’t care. I’m going to say this very broadly; I’m not saying everybody, but a vast majority of the civilian population in Gaza, is okay with what happened on October 7th. They were supportive of it. They live in an environment where Hamas in control has no problem using human shields. This is all stuff that we saw in warfare. But as I told you, very little of the American public is involved in the military. They don’t know what’s happening in these areas and don’t understand who you’re fighting.

Do I think the Israelis overstepped their bounds on something? Sure, everybody does. We did. We did a lot of the things that we did in the war. Is it intentional? No, I don’t believe that there’s an intention from the top to do what was intended from the top on Hamas on October 7th. That was pure barbarism. That was a slaughter, and they’re calling for the annihilation of Israel.

What pisses me off is how people call rapists, kid molesters, and murderers freedom fighters.

It’s ignorance when they say things like that because you haven’t experienced it. What is fascinating, though, and I don’t think it’s been talked about enough, is Israel, prior to October 7th, was a very divided country, and they had a lot of political upheaval. You had a lot of discord and stuff like this by doing what they did and where they chose to do the attack on the concert area with those young kids that were probably in the most liberal part of Israel.

They completely changed overnight, the Israelis from being a divided country to being a completely unified country. They know they have political issues; they’ll deal with them later. They’re not happy about the fact that they think that maybe the politicians didn’t protect them well enough against an attack like this. But they’re putting that all to the side right now, and they’re all focused on taking care of the threat, and they realize what they have. I don’t think you could have done anything that would have mobilized the whole country as much as what happened on October 7th.

No. Even orthodox Jews recruited themselves to the army, where this was never heard of before. With everything that’s happening, I speak to my husband, and he’s like, “You know, if you focus on violence, you’re going to attract violence.” He’s more subtle in his reaction to this than I am, where I get really hyper-vigilant that we need to protect ourselves. What do you think about that?

I don’t know about you, but I’m required to have a little fire extinguisher in my kitchen. It’s just the code in our county. Most counties have something like that. Do you guys have an alarm system in your house?

No.

Do you have a fire extinguisher anywhere in your house?

Probably.

Do you lock your doors at night?

Yes.

It’s not that your preparation is different if you’re prepared for something. This means you have put measures in place for a worst-case scenario.

Does that mean you’re inviting somebody to invade your house? 

No. 

If you’re not worried, why lock the doors? If you’re not worried about fire, why have a fire extinguisher that makes you paranoid? It’s funny to me. It’s not that your preparation is different if you’re prepared for something. This means, “Hey, in a worst-case scenario, this could happen. I put these measures in place. Now, I don’t have to think about it. I can live my great life.” You do it. Why? Because, “Worst case scenario, I know that if there’s a grease fire in my house, I have a fire extinguisher close by with the proper fluids in it to take care of that situation, or my doors are locked at night, so at least I’m going to get a warning if somebody’s trying to get into my house at night and I can sleep more soundly.” To me, prevention is not being paranoid. Are there people who take it to crazy degrees? Absolutely. But that’s not what we’re talking about.

We’re talking about basic preparation. If you understand violence, you understand how it works, and you understand how the worst people in the world use it, you’re much more able to live a truly peaceful life because you know what to avoid. At the minimum, you know how to recognize violence before it gets too bad. Most people, I’ll talk to them all the time, know something was wrong at point A, but because they didn’t want to be judging or seem like they’re being paranoid, they let it keep going. And then it gets to a point where the violence happens, and they can’t do anything about it, but they knew inherently there was something wrong where they could have left. 

My job is to make sure that people understand how to deal with your nonverbal cues, and if something feels wrong, you get yourself out of there. You know why you can. If you don’t have a choice, if you don’t have a place to run, if you have to fight, then, yes, I’m going to teach you how to use the tool of violence. I’m going to teach you how to use your body and anything available to you to put injury on another human being so they’re no longer a threat to you.

What do we need to avoid, and how do we recognize violence?

The key is not really how you recognize it. It’s how you train for it. When I train for things with my people, we train in an asocial environment. What does that mean? We’re not giving any sort of emotional communication in any way, shape, or form. There’s no verbal communication; there’s nothing. It’s just silent. That is the hallmark of asocial violence—no communication when people are about to attack you. When you get used to training in that environment, you also get used to understanding when things have gone asocial, and you can recognize that.

Oftentimes, people want to talk about all the avoidable situations where they think they need to use violence. Somebody yelled at them. Somebody drove them off on the road. All these things that you can just let go of. That doesn’t require you. That’s when most people want to respond violently or threateningly. It’s the exact opposite. And then, when they truly are in a situation that requires violence, often they’re so frozen that they just want to talk. They want to try to talk their way out of it. “Why are you here? What are you doing?” It’s too late for that when the person’s to that point. 

My job is to make sure that people understand how to deal with your nonverbal cues, and if something feels wrong, you get yourself out of there.

Understanding how to navigate antisocial aggression, which is what most people participate in—somebody tries to run you or cut you off on the road, you flip them off, you beep your horn, and you get away with it. Until that one day when the other guy responds, and he runs you off the road, comes out and pounds on your car, pulls you out of your car and beats the crap out of you. I’ve probably had at least ten people coming to me with that scenario where they were literally run off the road and had nothing in the toolbox to deal with anything like that. And yet, the whole thing was avoidable. They never had to go there. They chose to respond in a way that provoked violence.

A lot of it is just understanding. Most of us have not been taught unless we’ve grown up in violent streets, in a prison situation, or a very tough neighborhood. You don’t understand how to operate in an area where if you screw up, it will be backed up with violence. That’s what those neighborhoods do. Those neighborhoods enforce everything with a credible threat of violence. Therefore, you get used to living under that and how you conduct yourself in those situations. It’s rare for us who live in social, really nice neighborhoods to put ourselves in those environments. That’s why seeking out training, which educates you on that and then also puts you in scenarios where you have to deal with asocial violence safely, meaning you’re going to be in a learning experience, whereas if you screw up, you have a chance to do it again versus the first time you experience asocial violence. You don’t want to be that on the street; you want to understand it before you have to deal with it.

What kind of training do we need to take, especially for women? What every woman should learn or know to protect herself?

Let me frontload it by saying the obvious because I’m sure people are thinking this: Yes, come train with me if you want to. I cover all these subjects. Yes, buy my book, When Violence Is the Answer. 

Where do people train with you? 

I do it all over right now. Most of my courses are in the Las Vegas area. But now that COVID’s finally over, I can start traveling again. I usually go all over the US, and I’ll go over internationally.

A firearm can be a great equalizer and a powerful self-defense tool, but only if you are comfortable and responsible with its use. Share on X

Come to Miami.

I’ll probably be there. Miami is great. I love doing Miami. But an easy thing that your people can do right now—probably the biggest change in my training over the years and the most important thing—is to understand human nature first and foremost. I don’t mean that in an airy-fairy kind of way. You need to understand humans, their archetypes, and how they are. You have to understand dangerous humans and those that are not. You have to understand all aspects of human nature. 

One of the best and most entertaining ways to do that is to get Robert Greene’s book, The Laws of Human Nature. It’s a fantastic book. His other books are great, such as The 48 Laws of Power. The 48 Laws of Power was written because he was a scriptwriter in Hollywood. He saw when people tried to get their scripts done and how harsh the Hollywood environment was. He understood all these different personality types, so he wrote the book. He didn’t write the book to teach you how to become one of those. He wrote the book to teach you how to recognize these things and what tactics they use against you. In The Laws of Human Nature book, he took it even further for humanity. Those are probably two great things you can do to really arm your mind, and you’ll start recognizing people in your life immediately. 

Understanding violence and learning how to protect yourself is one thing.

Women as far as domestic violence, probably one of the best things they can ever do is to understand human nature because they will see archetypes of people that it’s usually obviously somebody in your immediate social circle or family circle where the majority of the domestic violence happens. The random attacks, even though now we’re seeing a huge increase in Europe over there because of the immigration issues, we’re seeing huge changes in attacks on rape, where it’s happening from random attacks rather than within your friend group or family group. That would be something that everybody listening to this could do today with no repercussions, a really easy thing to do. Start reading and learning. Get the audiobooks. That will really help you.

What should a woman do to protect herself? We talked about your training—you might be coming to Miami soon—and Robert Greene’s books. 

I just want to clarify because I might have sounded a little flippant when I was talking about people worrying about focusing on violence and bringing it into their lives. I understand what they’re talking about. I think there’s a misnomer, though. Understanding violence and learning how to protect yourself is one thing. I see it all the time, mostly among young guys that train, and then they’re almost always looking for a fight; they’re seeking it out. My big thing with people is I tell them always, “Don’t go looking for it because it will find you at the worst possible time when it comes out.” Violence is not anything you seek out. When I try to get across to new groups, I’ll usually say something to the group, like, “How many people in here know how to swim? Everybody who can swim can raise their hands. Okay, keep your hands up. Those of you who have ever had to swim for your life.” I’m one of those people. I’ve had to swim for my life twice. I leave my hand up, and surprisingly, there’s usually at least one person who had to swim for their life. Then I asked that person, “Would you ever want to experience that again?” They go, “No.” They take their hand down right away. That’s what real violence is. Violence is not something that you seek out. Those that sit there and talk about—mostly this is among males—when they use violence, or they got in a fight, and they’re bragging about it, it’s because they chose to use violence in a situation where they had the choice, and they could have disengaged and they got away with it. They were lucky. That type of seeking of violence is absolutely stupid, and it will bring it into your life, and it’s no way to live. It’s a fast track to prison to be like that. 

Once you handle your brain and body, it’s much easier than making sure you’re locking the doors.

Studying what we’re talking about, protecting ourselves, understanding human nature, realizing what predators are, the tactics they use, understanding how to use your body to protect yourself, how to use your mind correctly, and how to think about it correctly, all goes towards first protecting your brain and body. Interestingly, once you handle your brain and body, it’s much easier than making sure you’re locking the doors, you’ve got the security system, and you put away things. You’re vigilant in the basics because you only want a predator. 

I can’t eliminate violence. There’s no chance of doing that. I want a predator to look at my clients, their house, their way of life, and their way of carrying themselves and just say, “No. They’re too much work. I’ll go on to somebody easier.” Predators don’t want a challenge. They don’t want to go up against somebody prepared. They don’t want to go up against somebody aware. If I can get my clients to do the basics that way, that eliminates a good portion of being targeted for violence.

Is there a checklist or things everybody must do to protect their home?

The number one thing you can do to protect your house—one of the biggest deterrents you can get to towards criminals in any way, shape, or form—is a dog. People are saying, “I don’t want to have a dog.” I understand that. I’m not talking about a guard dog. I’m not talking about well-trained dogs. My daughters have this little Lhasa apso, just the most annoying little dog, but nobody comes by the house, and we don’t know about it. That dog lets everybody know. That’s the one thing.

The thing that really stood out to me was here in Las Vegas. We had a horrible robbery of a judge and his wife. They lived in a triple-gated community. That means you had to go through three gates to get the part of their property. It was invaded by a home invasion. In a safe that he had in his house, they were sure he had a bunch of gold and silver, which he did not have. He just had papers and stuff like that. They were completely misinformed. They beat him to within an inch of his life in front of his wife. They also beat his wife, not as badly, but she had to sit there and watch it. The guy had a long, long recovery. The most interesting part, though, of that horrible situation was when the detectives tracked these guys down and got them; they broke into their apartment. They saw that they had hit various neighborhoods. When they got to the neighborhood where the judge was, they saw all these X’s through all these houses in that neighborhood. Every one of those X’s represented a house that had a dog. They wouldn’t go after anything that had a dog. They can defeat security systems and pick locks—none of that intimidates them. But they cannot shut a dog up. Dogs give you an early warning to get up because something’s wrong. 

It’s inconvenient for many people because many don’t want to have pets because of their lifestyles. But all I can do is pass on the best facts I find, which is something across the board. When I talk to all my friends in law enforcement, it’s just a standing issue that they will do anything to avoid a dog, not for the reasons we think. We all think it’s because they’re scared of the dog. Well, it’s not. That can be a factor depending on the dog, but it’s because the dog cannot be silenced easily.

Yes. Is there anything else besides the dog? For example, what do you do when you’re on vacation and you leave the house but your car is not there?

These are the number one problem right here. I am shocked at how everybody lives their life on their damn phone, and they tell you where they are all the time. “I’m here real time.” My family knows if they’re going to post anything about where we are, it’s going to be when we’re back home and we’re gone. People have really gotten away from getting to know their neighbors. We’ve been able to do that in my area; it’s great. We all look after each other’s houses. We let everybody know when we will be gone or what’s going on. I’m fortunate I live in a great neighborhood.

Dogs give you an early warning to get up because something’s wrong.

The real thing is just preparation. Not too many people get papers delivered anymore, including your mail and all of that. You just don’t want to leave any obvious signs that you’re not around when you’re gone. The other thing, too, especially if it’s women, as far as being targeted for sexual assault or anything like that in neighborhoods, if your husband’s gone a lot or whoever you’re living with is gone a lot. You’re being watched. That’s one really important thing. They want to see when you’re alone. We had a lot of people who were getting home during the pandemic, and then, of course, we had it happen before the crash in 2008 when a lot of high-end neighborhoods were getting home invasions. The easiest way they get in is by waiting for the wife to come back from being out doing yoga or coming back from work or the grocery store, leaving the door open as she’s emptying the car. That’s when these guys would get in. They would come in under the door and do things like that. Much of what I’m talking about is very basic, but the question to ask yourself is not, “Oh, I’ve heard this before.” The question you ask yourself is, are you doing it?

Exactly.

That’s the problem of most people. “Yeah, I know that.” I know you know that. But are you doing it? That’s where you find people slipping through the cracks because it didn’t happen yesterday. I try to identify all these things; most people can identify them for themselves when taking unnecessary risks. The term I use for that is, “You’re basically sleeping with your head on a railroad track, and you got away with it last night. The train didn’t come by and hit you, so you’re fine. So you keep putting your head on that railroad track because it’s convenient.” It may save you. It could be that shortcut through the really bad neighborhood that saves you 15-20 minutes on the commute home. It could be going to the ATM at 11 at night because you just don’t want to get up 20 minutes earlier to get the stupid cash you need for the kids in the morning for whatever they have going on. This is when everything happens. I show videos of this all the time. You can tell these people doing these acts go to the ATM at night or whatever; it’s not the first time they’ve done it. You can tell how comfortable they are doing this, and it’s something they’ve got away with for quite some time, and yet they’re taking this unnecessary risk. Then, one night, it happens. Is that living? Is that being paranoid? Or is that just being smart? Just saying, “It’s not worth it for me to go out this time of night, get gas, and do whatever. As much as I don’t want to, I will set my clock 45 minutes earlier—tomorrow morning. I’m going to get up, and I’m going to do that in the morning.” 99% of the threat goes away when you do that.

What about carrying firearms or training in weapons? How do we keep it safe from our kids?

Disclaimer: I own a business here in Las Vegas. It’s called Machine Guns Vegas. It’s a tourist-shooting place. I have a class seven manufacturer’s license from the ATF, which means my company can make machine guns. I just want to lay this out before I say what I’m about to say.

I have a concealed carry; I’ve been training for years. It is a very personal decision. It is not a buy-it-and-forget-it type of purchase. If you are going to take on the responsibility of a firearm, you have to ask yourself if you’re going to train. That doesn’t mean all the time; it doesn’t mean it’s your lifestyle or you’re a competitive shooter. But are you going to put the time into learning how to use the weapon properly? Even a couple of weekend courses over the year can be huge. You may get to the point where you enjoy it. A lot of people find it fun and challenging. It’s fun to learn firearms. But are you going to do that then, as far as securing it? Yes. I have probably three safes in my house, but that’s because I have a lot of different types of firearms. There’s a safe right up by my nightstand, which carries my firearm for home defense. That’s right by me and everything. My wife is also very well-trained.

I’m a huge believer in letting kids see what firearms can do. It takes away the curiosity.

That’s awesome. But what if it’s dark in the middle of the night? How do you open the safe?

Two ways. I have a fingerprint ability to open it, and then I have a quick code that I can get in a worst-case scenario. It will both work regardless of power. The kids can’t get near it. But the other thing, too, is I’m a huge believer in taking kids out as young as possible and letting them see what firearms can do. It takes away the curiosity. My grandfather did it by shooting a watermelon with us, and we had no questions after that. The kids that get in trouble are mostly the kids who are curious and know they don’t get to see it. Once they understand what something does, it usually makes a really big impression on them. 

Again, educate kids. Tell them, “You know, that’s a loaded firearm.” Teach them the four rules of using a firearm, “You don’t point a firearm at anything that you don’t want to destroy. You always want to check your background. And, you treat all guns as they’re loaded.” You tell the kids all those little basics at an early age, and they just understand that. 

A lot of people think, “Oh, my God, it’s going to scare them.” No, it’s not. Kids love stuff like that. You’re not presenting it in a violent manner; you’re presenting it in just the same thing you would do with a hot stove or anything else. “Hey, the stove can make great food, but it can also really hurt you if you don’t understand how to use it.”

How early is it? How early did you expose your kids to firearms? I guess it’s a little different in your household.

It is. My kids were exposed to it probably around five. They weren’t shooting guns or anything like that, but they were exposed to what guns are. My wife is now the assistant sheriff here in Las Vegas. She’s number three at the agency. They’ve seen my wife carry them all their life. I’ve carried concealed. They’re just used to seeing them.

Sounds like she’s a nice lady. I want to meet your wife.

Oh, she’s great. She’s awesome. We’ve just been very practical with the kids on that because they’re going to see mom and dad carrying a firearm. But we don’t make a big deal out of it. They understand everything. But if you’re bringing something into your life, you have to be responsible. Every bullet that comes out of that gun is your responsibility, and you have to understand what that means. It’s a personal thing.

I want everybody to have the right to own a firearm. I just think that right comes with a little bit of responsibility.

I want everybody to have the right to own a firearm. I just think that right comes with a little bit of responsibility. One of the biggest gun thefts in the world is people who just leave their guns in their cars; they’re very lackadaisical with them. Any of the shootings that you see, as far as kids getting a hold of guns, usually it’s because the parent didn’t secure it properly. But again, that’s not a reason to shut down responsible gun ownership. You need to really severely enforce any rules against those that break rules like that and do stupid stuff, but you don’t throw the baby out with a bath water.

A firearm is a great equalizer if you know how to use it properly. It can be a tremendous self-defense weapon. But again, it has to be at your comfort level; not everybody’s comfortable with that type of responsibility.

Amazing. I can speak with you for a very long time, but I want to be respectful of your time before we say goodbye for now. What are your three top tips for living a stellar life?

(1) There is no tomorrow. What do I mean by that?  My wife and I have been together for 20 years now, and we laugh because it feels like yesterday, yet we have caught ourselves in the last couple of years. “Oh, we were always going to do X, Y or Z,” and now we’re just doing it. We’re taking those family trips because both of us are incredibly busy. It’s easy for us to say, “Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.” Well, I’ve had friends unexpectedly, unfortunately, pass away. I’ve had friends killed and stuff like that. You just realize we’re making this assumption that we’re going to have all this time, and everybody’s going to be healthy. You look at your kids; they’re great markers because they grow up so fast. First and foremost, just make time. Make time for those events. We just got back from taking the kids to Europe for a spring break. They’d never been out of the country. It was great, and they liked it. We looked at each other and shook our heads, “Why haven’t we done more of this?” 

Understanding violence and how the worst people in the world wield it empowers you to live a truly peaceful life by knowing what to avoid. Share on X

(2) Take care of your health. A lot of my friends just let that go. They didn’t take care of themselves. You don’t have to be like a workout maniac. You don’t have to be a cross fitter or anything like that, but just taking good, basic care of yourself is key because if you lose your health due to poor maintenance, you’re going to really kick yourself. We put all that stuff last.

(3) And then the last thing is to truly understand. I’m going back to what I suggested for everybody. If you want a very happy life, truly understand human nature. If you understand human nature, you’re never going to be surprised by human nature, and you’re not going to be depressed. Marcus Aurelius had this quote, I’m going to screw it up because I can’t remember it verbatim, but basically, he got up every morning and said, I know today people are going to fail me. I know they’re going to lie to me. He said all these things about what could possibly happen. He said, but it’s not going to cause me to lose hope in humanity, and have a great day. We prepare ourselves in reality by understanding human nature, but we have a great life despite the challenges we will have. If you employ those three things early enough in your life, it will make a big difference.

Prepare yourself for reality, but also prepare yourself for miracles, for life to exceed your expectations and your wildest dreams. Where can people find you and train with you? Please come to Miami again.

The best place for them to go is surviveviolence.com. I have a report there. If you liked what we talked about, there’s just a PDF. It doesn’t cost anything—it’s free—and it talks about all these things.

If you just put Tim Larkin on Google, I will pop up everywhere. I have a podcast that’s all over my YouTube channel. I also have my IG, and all that stuff is listed. If you go to any one of those, I put all that content up on each one of those platforms.

Perfect. I really appreciate you. Thank you so much for being here, taking a stand fearlessly and helping so many people live better lives.

Well, I appreciate you letting me talk to your audience.

Thank you. And thank you, listeners. Remember, there is no tomorrow. Make time for your loved ones today. Take care of your health. Truly understand human nature. And have a stellar life. This is Orion till next time.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

{✓}Read Robert Greene’s books, specifically The Laws of Human Nature and The 48 Laws of Power, to understand human nature and recognize dangerous behaviors.

{✓}Get a dog as an early warning system. Criminals avoid homes with dogs because dogs cannot be easily silenced and will bark to alert you.

{✓}Don’t advertise vacation plans on social media until after returning. Posting in real time announces that your home is empty and unprotected.

{✓}Eliminate signs you’re away, like piled-up mail and newspapers and dark homes. Put some interior lights on timers to maintain the home’s lived-in appearance.

{✓}Teach kids gun safety protocols. If you secure firearms, use safes, lock boxes, or other secure storage – never leave firearms unattended.

{✓}Practice regularly if owning firearms for self-defense. Take courses periodically to maintain skills with handling, storage, etc.

{✓}Avoid isolated areas when possible, and don’t go out alone at night. If running errands at night is unavoidable, remain vigilant.

{✓}Trust your gut instincts when situations feel unsafe. Our survival instincts pick up on non-verbal cues before the conscious mind recognizes the danger.

{✓}Build confidence in your ability to protect yourself as a last resort. Take courses periodically to retain muscle memory for techniques.

{✓}Visit surviveviolence.com and download Tim Larkin’s complimentary report packed with valuable insights. You can also learn more about Tim’s life-saving principles for avoiding violence across multiple platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

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Tim Larkin is teaching principles and methods to minimize the chance of violence entering your life.