Many talk about survival, but have never had to survive. Many talk of the importance of emergency preparation, but have never had to put their preparations to the test under actual duress. Clint Emerson is not one of those people.
Clint Emerson is a retired Navy SEAL combat medic who spent twenty years conducting special operations all over the world while assigned to SEAL Teams (including the elite SEAL Team SIX) and the National Security Agency (NSA). Over the years, he developed an impressive array of practical skills that he used in austere conditions both at home and abroad. This lead to the creation of Violent Nomad, a personal, non-kinetic program cataloguing the skills necessary to defend against any predator or crisis. Since leaving the service, he has authored two books with a third on the way, is founder and managing partner of Escape The Wolf,and conducts training for various government agencies.
Your first book, Escape The Wolf, covers a lot of ground on what you need to know to safely travel internationally. In your experience, what is the number one mistake Americans make when traveling abroad?
Escape the Wolf describes two systems called Total Awareness and THREAT – both of which identify the most important aspects of travel whether you’re traveling from home to work, or New York to Dubai. Total Awareness is a four-part awareness system defining where your attention should be focused: personal awareness, situational awareness, third tarty awareness and cultural awareness. I feel most Americans leave themselves wide open on all four aspects, but cultural awareness is probably the weakest of the four. Americans tend to have no idea about the worlds they traverse, to include appropriate cultural mannerisms, protocol and proper etiquette. All of these can prevent you from being targeted or being unintentionally insulting to those around you. I tell companies all the time – the business card you collect can very well be the person to help you when good times go bad.
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