Why Investing in Self Defense Is the Best Decision You'll Ever Make w/ Steve Eckert ⚔️ EP104
50:28 Share

ladies and gentlemen welcome to a special edition of the money mondays for 2025. normally we're talking about three core topics how to make money how to invest money having a giveaway to charity but this is a special edition episode we are outside here in the rv motorhome parked at black site ranch black site ranch was named based on operation black site we are going into our fifth year of operation black site

And because of that, we just happened to finish a three-day bootcamp weekend with our guest, Mr. Steve Eckert. And so what I want to cover today is why should people get trained? Why is it so important, especially with the climate of what's going on in our society, not just in California, but

but the terror that's been happening in London, the stabbings that have been happening, the intensity that's going on, why people need to get self-defense. And so we're going to talk about not investing money, but investing into your skills, investing into your mind, investing into your life to be able to protect your household. So without further ado, I'm going to have Steve Ecker give you a quick two-minute bio so we can get straight into it.

What's up? It's awesome coming on. It's the perfect timing right after we just finished the class. I apologize, my voice might be a little froggy, but we're having some fun. It's needed. Some people need that. This is really what it's all about, about helping these individuals become leaders.

Yeah, we're helping them make money, but really to become even better husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. And that's going to make them be a better entrepreneur because you probably go down the list of your guests on this show. I bet I'm probably one of the least richest, but I can guarantee you

Because of things like Operation Blacksite, I am the wealthiest that has ever been on your show. I can promise you that. There won't be anyone wealthier that will ever come on the show. Because wealth and riches to me is a whole different story. And that's the way you live your life, the lifestyle you have, the way you lead your family and do things like Operation Blacksite. It's needed. It's needed in the family structure because that's my job as a man is to be...

fathering of my children and the leader of my household and learning the skills at Operation Blacksite is the foundation. This is by far, of all the so many different programs I do, even the Father-Son program we do,

This is by far the most impactful. Seeing the changes that we're making. In three freaking days, what we've done for these men and women that came here, from when they walked in to when they left, I told them our goal was to make them 10% better in their discipline, in their energy, in their confidence, in the way they attack the challenges in life, and also that's going to allow them to

kick their own ass from when they came here? Can they kick their own ass from when they showed up, both mentally, physically, emotionally? Can they outsmart and outguile that person that showed up here three days ago? And absolutely, I can look everyone in the eyes and say they absolutely can. So what's interesting is we actually have 40% women in attendance for the last two years out of the five years. It really happened in the last two years. Why do you think that more women are coming to get trained now? That question is going a lot of different directions. I think part of the main thing is that men have gone...

so soft really in this country. I think they're not leading the way they should. They're become too comfortable and they are not holding themselves accountable. They're not leading as the husbands and fathers should. And so the women have to step up. They're forced to step up to be the man of the household, whether they're

a single mom or even if they might even be married. Some of these women are married and they're like, you know what? Someone needs to step up and learn these kind of things because maybe their husband's just getting complacent. They just need to step up and it's a crazy world out there. Especially think about a single mother that doesn't have a man in the household to at least co-dominate with

That's a scary ass thing. I'm a fairly capable man. And even when I go outside to get something at my car in the middle of the night, if I forgot something at nighttime, I'm going out there and my head is on a swivel. I am nervous and aware. Imagine a woman by herself with her two kids in the house. There's no one to go out there and get it. She's the one. She has to be the superhero.

So when people go to boot camps, events, and learn, what is the difference for them? Why is it important to understand how to use a gun? How to at least hold a gun, shoot a gun? Well, here's the thing. Besides you could just say, well, that's their right as an American, which absolutely it is. I think all Americans should own guns and should carry guns. Because you know what? The bad guys certainly are, and they're out there right now.

Every one of us, you, me, every single one that showed up to Operation Blacksite, there is someone out there that is literally crazy.

and practicing to take that person down, whether it's to they're stalking them or they're going to break into their home or even in business. Someone is out there training to take you down. You have enemies out there, like literally and figurative enemies, both personally and professionally. You need to be able to protect yourself. You need to know how to defend yourself. You create this empire. What's the point of having this empire if you don't have the discipline and the infrastructure to defend it?

When did you start? How did you dedicate your life to this? Have you always been doing this? It probably did for as far as I can remember. I was in the Marine Corps, but even before that, just thinking about

and weapons and guns and knives. I've carried a knife even before guns as far as I can remember. As far as I can remember walking, I was always carrying a little pocket knife and a little Swiss Army knife at all times. And now what it really clicked is, as you can now recently know, once you bring another human into this world, like, oh, fuck, the game just changed. It has changed. It's now no longer about me. I have something...

a higher calling now at this point. Like as men, we are dependent for our significance. We're dependent on something higher than ourselves. It's impossible for me as a man or any man, I think, to, to,

really have that significance unless it's something outside of themselves. And the ultimate significance they could have is bringing a kid into this world. And you now need to be the one that is not just a provider. Problem is men think that being a provider is enough. That is, that is the price of admission. That's just to get in the front freaking door. You've got to be a protector and a father.

So when I had my daughter, I texted some of the guys in the Operation Blacksite crew and I said I would die for my family, but I would kill for my daughter. Hell yeah. I love that. That's awesome. It's been burned in my mind. A lot of people told me like, well, once you have a child, like your brain will change, your heart will change. And I'm not that emotional of a guy. Like I've had 40 people pass away. So I've become numb to a lot of things the last couple of years. And so I didn't think it was going to happen. And then once I held her, it happened. All

all of them were right you guys were right whoever you guys were all 40 of you plus were right like my mind changed and i made me much more serious like i want i started training more often i started working out more often i texted all my friends andy for sale and michael channel i started making i texted them saying i'm going to start working out way more often because of her it changed my entire mindset

You have your kids working out all the time. You make such great social media content. If you guys make sure to follow Steve Eckert, like the kids are out there working out. You've got them on training. Tell us like, what does a day look like for your kids? What do you make them go through? Yeah. So we, we homeschool our kids and their homeschooling is doing things like operation black site. They come in here and they're helping out behind the scenes. Like we're sitting there holding mitts for the, for the men, my son, 13 years old, he's sitting there helping them out.

correcting them on what they're doing. But that's a day in our life is training. We train seven days a week. We haven't taken a day off in... I don't even know that we started tracking over three years straight. Every day for three years? And that's when we started tracking it. Me and my son definitely has done over 1,100 days straight through. Zero days off. And we train every single day. We need it. It's part of... I think a man is meant to be strong. He's meant to be fierce. He's meant to have this energy and endurance. And people say, well, that's overtraining. Well, I could...

not trained and I could all have worse things I'm addicted to. I could be watching porn all day. I could be snorting cocaine. I could be a drunk. I don't drink any alcohol. I've never done a single drug in my life. Never even smoked a drop of weed. Imagine if I snorted cocaine, what it would look like around this place. Like it would be, this place would be a mayhem. It'd be crazy.

So that's what our day revolves around, our training together. And then our education, our style of education, like things like Operation Blacksite, it's freedom. We call it our ideal freak freedom lifestyle. And our day, literally our schedule, is revolved around our training together. To me, that's the new flex. That's what I say. I'm the wealthiest person that's ever been on this podcast. I train with my entire family, my wife, my son, and my daughter, seven days per week.

We have dinner together seven days per week. And I'm home. I'm educating them according to the way that we want to. We want to show them how to live, how to think for themselves, not what the school system or whatever else. And that's a whole nother topic tries to push down their neck. So we are together all the time.

So there's four main things that happen during Operation Blacksite. I'm going to walk through each one of the four so you can talk to me about each one. There's learning how to shoot. And we use all airsoft guns here, just so everyone knows. Because we have an animal sanctuary with 200 animals, we don't use live ammunition here. So it's all airsoft guns. But we have a full training center over there. We have a shoot house there. The local police, K-9, SWAT, and Sheriff use it every single week. And so we've had, I don't know, 40, 50, 60 times now where the police department's come in. We do it for free for them.

And they were here twice this week. And they typically bring 20 to 50 guys out to go through K-9 SWAT, the sheriffs, and they all come here. And it's great. And it'll always be free to them because I want them to be training. I'd love to get the fire departments here as well because of what they're... I mean, they're saving California as we speak right now. We're doing their best to. So we do shoot training. We do fight training.

escape training with Chris and Carly and then we also bring in trauma so people learn about what to do in situations with tourniquets and things like that. Let's walk through each one. On the shoot training side, we kind of asked you earlier about why is it important. Why is it important to be proficient to actually know how to handle a gun? How to load it, how to point it, how to shoot it?

People think that since they can go buy a gun, that they buy the gun and they think, oh, now I'm safe. I just actually had to go renew my CCW two weeks ago. And we're at the course and you have to take all the guns that are on your license. And you have to requalify with them every two years to show you can shoot at 5, 10, and 15 yards. There was this dude there. He shot it. And his gun literally fell apart. It was inoperable. And they asked him, when is the last time you shot this?

His last time he had to do this test, which was two years ago. So he thinks just because he has it. Also, just as men, we think we can, everyone thinks they can fight. They think, oh, if it goes down, if the terrorist attack happens, if the active shooter comes here, I'll be able to take care of it. You know, I'll step up then. But you're only going to fall back to your...

your level of training that you have. You're not going to be Billy Badass in the superhero. You're probably going to crumble under pressure and probably cause more damage than good if you're not getting those sets and reps in with the shooting that we're talking about and the fighting. All right. So on the fighting side, we typically bring in Tony Blowers here, Michael Chandler when he's not traveling for training for a fight. We bring in some serious guys, like very high level guys. Why is it important for men and women to learn how to fight?

Well, you don't always get to have the gun on. You're going to plane. You go into airport. You check through your, you're at the airport. Although I always try to sneak some stuff in that I can get in, but that's besides the point. We could edit that part out, but yeah,

You're not always in a situation where you can carry. You can't bring a gun in certain places. And what happens if your gun malfunctions? What happens if someone takes the gun from you? What are you going to do then? Now you're completely disarmed. So you need to know how to handle yourself physically. That's part of just being that protector that we're talking about. It's just as important, making yourself a human weapon, because it's just not always available to you. Also, they malfunction, and they run out of bullets. Who knows what? There are endless scenarios.

And think of the level of confidence you have that, okay, I'm capable in this area, also incapable in this area. This raises your level of confidence. And these things bleed into all of the areas of your life. That confidence is going to show up at your family with your wife and your kids. That confidence is going to show up in the office with your team. By doing these things that seem like it has nothing to do with business or making money, absolutely. You get in better shape and get fit and strong and healthy. You learn how to shoot proficiently. You learn how to fight and defend yourself. I guarantee you make more money. It's just impossible not to.

What I've also noticed is that the most skilled at fighting are really good at de-escalating and they actually don't want to fight. They want to fight for fun. Fighting is fun. But they don't actually want to fight in like a normal street setting unless someone is wronging them or their family. Why do you think that the people that are highly skilled are so good at de-escalating?

Because they've had the sets and reps and so much... In order to get that skilled and proficient... You think Michael Chandler is going to go get in a fist fight with someone... At the bar. At the bar or at a gas station. Hell no. But that amount of discipline to get to that level...

Like I said, it bleeds over into all the other areas. He has now emotional regulation, emotional discipline to not freak out and crumble under the pressure because he's been there. He's seen it. You're good at shooting or guys that come here that have been in serious combat and seen some horrific things. They know what it's like. They don't want to be any part of that. They want to be nowhere near it. You want to deescalate it and avoid it at all times. But knowing that

If I need to. And that shit shows up at my doorstep. Like, here I am, motherfucker. I'm ready for it. If needed. Don't want to, but here I am. Yeah, we did an episode with Vince Ritchie. And...

- Literally showed up at his doorstep. It was three or four guys showed up at his doorstep and luckily he'd thrown the, the video went very viral, got hundreds of millions of views. Luckily he threw the tea in the guy's face, pulled the gun out in 1.6 seconds, and was able to defend his wife and daughter inside because he went through training here and obviously he goes through training quite regularly with Tarantico and other people. And so one less training session might have been the difference of his life. - And also putting himself in rooms. Like think about BlackSide. Yeah, I'm one of the instructors and I help run it, but

showing up to a place like this where you're no longer like a lot of other programs I go to, I'm the most successful. I'm the strongest. I'm in charge. I'm come here and around people that in different areas are such a higher level than you. It constantly elevate automatically. Just that being in that presence elevates you. It makes you step up. You have no chance. Like you just have to stop being a little bitch and like you're,

automatically elevated just by being in the presence of all these different amazing individuals in all these different areas of life. Like I'm a decent shooter. I come here with the guys that show up here. There's BJ Baldwin. I'm an amateur. And his girls won like 30 or 40 championships. Anytime I find a couple of minutes of downtime, I'm zipping over to the shooting range when we're taking a break from the fighting stuff just to try and soak in some knowledge. Like you need to be around these people that are better than you.

and you need to subdue your ego in order to do that. Like do the fighting stuff. Michael Chandler comes here. Do you think I'm going to go and start bragging about fights I've been in or how tough I am? Hell no. I'm soaking it in and feel honored and privileged to be around those people. Now imagine civilians that are not even the instructors are coming in. How like,

Boom. Mind-blowing. They're like, oh, there's Tim Kennedy. It is mind-blowing what the growth that they could have and that they do have. The transformation that we just saw in these last three days, it's freaking mind-boggling. It's fulfilling. It's the most fulfilling thing we do.

escaping so Chris and Carly teach people about escaping and I heard today I think they actually threw them in back of trunks after they taught them how to get out of handcuffs and ropes and things like that and tying their feet together and so they go through this training to learn how to escape from

some pretty tough scenarios, but then they put them in a real life setting. And so I actually filmed a TV show called Going Public. And I didn't know we were filming this section. And Chris was teaching me about how to escape. And luckily I'd gone through Operation Black Sight myself over the years for what had happened. And so on Going Public, you guys can watch the show, goingpublic.com. And...

They kidnapped me and you can you'll see in the scene but they you know he put a hood over my head and I went into full defense mode and I was started spinning in circles and figured out a way to like escape and then like they threw me in the back they had to like Get a second guy to hold my legs down because I was like squirrelly just trying to figure out how to escape and I'm not as nearly as big as you guys obviously and then they finally got me into the trunk and I broke out and I Ran off 100 yard dash and jumped over the fence anyways

In those moments, I was calm in the chaos because I didn't know if it was what the setting was. And it was very, very, very intense. And even when you're going through training, it can feel very real because your brain can't tell the difference. Similar to a dream. Why?

Do you think it's important to learn how to escape from things? Do you think people still get kidnapped? Is that a thing? Should people be worried about that? 100%. It's a thing all the time. Look at human trafficking. It's probably at an all-time high right now. And you could think, oh, well, that's never going to happen to me. I'm never going to need that. Well, until you do need it, and then it's a huge mistake from not learning how to do these things. You're not always going to be. You sometimes are outnumbered. You can't always be in control of every situation as much as we try and as much as awareness you have.

You think you don't need something until you need it. Until the whole cartel shows up, there's six of them. Exactly, and you need to have these skills. But you already touched on also what it does. Even let's say you never need it, hopefully. Luckily, you never need it. You never want to need it. You just said it yourself that the way you handled that was staying calm under that pressure. Tying these people up and putting them in a trunk, it sounds like, well, that is so stupid. What are they ever going to get out of that? This is like just craziness. Why would someone pay for that?

That way, that ability of them to control their emotions and not freak the fuck out under that pressure and figure a way out of that situation is making them such a better problem solver. So much more emotional intelligence when they are freaking out, their employees are freaking out or they're, they're, someone is stealing from the company. They're not going to free. It's giving them that internal muscle that, that, that,

to emotional discipline so that they can bounce back when things don't go their way and they can hold the ground and not crumble under the pressure. - Speaking of pressure and high intensity situations, sometimes children, friends, fights do happen and there's blood everywhere. And so we've been bringing in people to teach about trauma and

literally have fake blood all over the floor right now because it was very intense. They're training for half the day just on bloody situations, how to do tourniquets, etc. Why should people learn about, well, let's just call it bloody situations? And you could say, well,

they're going to get shot in a terrorism. But it's not just that. It could be a bicycle accident. Your kid could fall on a bike and something pierces through their arm. Like, I've seen some crazy things just with kids, the crazy shit kids do. Yeah, baseball bat. Exactly. So, that's... And again, this all ties into that same...

uh not crumbling under the pressure having that emotional discipline emotional regulation but if you're gonna carry a gun and you're gonna be making holes in people you also need to know how to plug those holes in people because i might get shot my kid might get shot or maybe i'm defending my family and i get shot do my kids

Are they familiar with firearms and firearm safety rules? But also, they know how to plug me up. What if I'm incapacitated? I'm down. My 10-year-old daughter, she did it here with the group today. She knows how to plug the holes. Apply the tourniquet in under 30 seconds and make sure you're set. So, I...

I carry a gun everywhere I go, but I also, with that gun, and I have it here with me. I'm strapped here with us. I don't know who knows who's rolling up on the money Mondays, but I also carry a tourniquet everywhere I go, and so does my entire family. We all carry a tourniquet and a gun on us at all times, in addition to a knife, a flashlight, so we're always prepared and ready. And then there's always a tourniquet in the doors of all of our cars, in our RV. There's tourniquets all stashed around the house. You never know when exactly you're going to need it.

So Los Angeles is under fire right now. And this episode is coming out on Monday. So I would hope that it's out by Monday, but I don't know that it will be because some of them are not contained at all or less than 8% contained for the big one. At this time, there's some serious looting going on and people have been catching. Let's not talk about the arsons part, but the actual looting part.

They're rolling deep. They're showing videos of car after car after car like for today for example the Encino and Tarzana fires in the middle of daytime and there was six car loads guys just showed up and Luckily there was a police barricade there and they were filming it and those guys just turned around and they smiled and way to the camera That's how ballsy they are right now how brazen they are and they're just gonna go drive somewhere else to go loot those houses and

I think we're in for a pretty tough situation for the next month. You know, even when the fires calm down because I think that the police are gonna be overwhelmed and I don't know that they're gonna be able to protect those households. Why is it important to be able to protect your household in these times?

Well, this goes back to when you have those kids, it's a whole different game. You said you'll not only kill for them, you will freaking die for them. You will kill for them. And that's why you need to build a community and learn from people like we learned from Blackside, but then also build your community in your own neighborhood. Get to know your neighbors. Build your own mini little army where you're looking out for each other. And it starts right in your own home. Your whole entire family should know the plan. Like my family knows everything.

Something happens. Which part of the house is they're going to? Where do they need to retreat to? Who's doing what? Whose role is what? If we needed to get out of the house, it's on fire. They know who is grabbing what, who's taking care of what. So it comes down to being prepared. All the things we do at Operation Blacksite prepare you for every scenario that could happen there. You defend yourself with the weapons. That doesn't work. We need to know hand-to-hand. That doesn't work. Maybe I'm getting taken.

All right, how the hell am I getting out of here now? Because we're outnumbered because the police aren't even here to save me. No one is coming to save you. You are your own first responder. So no one's coming to freaking save you. Especially, it's my family. I'm not waiting for someone to come and save me. There was one of the floods or something happened. I don't remember what it was. There's this picture of this dude walking through a flood or something, holding his little daughter's hand, not even carrying her. And he's out of shape and he's got this big beer belly. And there's like, I don't know if it's a cop or a firefighter or a neighbor carrying the man's wife

out of this disaster zone like holy fuck like that is your job that is your number one job there's no greater job or job that you have more responsibility in being a husband and a father so it is your duty to protect that family your family and your home like that is your should be your safe place it's horrible these people are doing that's why you need to get your whole family on board someone breaks into my house and

They might think they might, oh, they'll think the father might be the one to defend it. They're going to have a whole fucking four of us in all different positions knowing exactly what they need to do. So they're going to have a force. You need to create your own little mini army starting in your own house. So you and Bejos Kulian also have something called the Squire Program, which is fathers and sons and high school age sons, right? Talk to us. Why is it important for that father and son combo? Shit, I can't imagine if...

When I was in junior high school and high school, if it was like it is now with the social media and all this craziness and people don't know what freaking bathroom to use anymore. And there's like 17 different genders and all this other stuff.

I can't imagine the pressure that we'd be on. I had no friends in high school as it is. It was really hard enough way back in the 80s and 90s. Imagine now. Those kids have so much bullshit to deal with. They need a wake-up call. They need a little more guidance. They need to know what is required of a man. How do you operate and act as a man in the world today? Because as I said, the men are going soft. We need to start shifting the tides.

So we have more protectors out there in LA when things like that happen. Imagine if there were a lot of fierce men out there that came to things like Operation Blacksite, all sprinkled around the country and all around LA. Now you're going to have a force of people who don't even know you because you're going to go and do the right thing. You're going to go protect those that can't protect themselves. And that's the thing we're teaching these kids at a young age because they're – shit, if we don't start getting our hands on the youth, we are – this country is fucked.

so squire program has now expanded all over the country right that's how popular it's gotten how interesting it's gotten talk us through like why the father-son element why not just why not just the sons then we're administering this program it's about them bonding together that's the number one voice they need to listen to not me just bringing i'm bringing their chaos there so that

They can block out that outside noise and learn to not be influenced by all these outside forces. Learn to trust and bond and connect with their father. That's the one who's going to get them through the shit. And that's the one that's going to show them the way of how to be a man. It's not me. I'm not showing them how to be a man. We're just putting them together through this experience together so they can totally connect.

that's their male role model. That's their hero, is their father. Not any of us instructors, none of their social media influencers, not some freaking basketball player or LeBron James or an actor or a rapper who they are getting influenced by. We've got to shift the tides and bring it back to the fathers who are leading the way.

What can people do when they're not going to – if they can't go to a boot camp or they're living in somewhere and maybe they're living international and they can't fly out here, et cetera. What can someone do? Do they go to martial arts training? Do they do workouts at home? Can they learn anything online? Like what are the things people can do in their normal lives? I guarantee anything you want to learn, at least learn a baseline of is YouTube is the greatest resource in the world. Like it's freaking awesome when it's used for the right reasons.

But start doing hard shit with their family. Start doing, going on hard hikes that are 10, 15, 20 miles up in the mountains. Start learning about survival. Start having, doing fun stuff together that's absolutely free. It's free to go hike in the mountain. It's free to train every day. I could get someone lose 100 pounds in an empty elevator with zero equipment and zero space. Like you always have a way, but connecting as a family is,

doing hard stuff together, training together, practicing stuff together. And then thinking about survival stuff. They could, we have a thing we call our house survival night. I put on a purge alarm in our house. We have 15 minutes to get out of the house and everyone, we only, whatever you can carry in 15 minutes and get out. And we have, we have to set up a tent in the backyard and we stay out there for overnight. And usually in a real, a cold time of year, we do it and we see how fast can we get out there. And they've gotten so good. I have to put it down to like five minutes because 15 minutes is,

we're out there. They have fucking generators and their PlayStation 5 and all their shit. So I'm like, we might as well just stay inside. We're not camping anymore because they learned to get all their shit out there that we need. But do something like that. It's fun. We have a lot of fun with it. I think that actually goes back to BlackSight. All these things, yeah, they're effective, but at the same time, it's freaking fun as hell. Like we're having fun with every single evolution here at Operation BlackSight. I think that's something else that

Most people, especially men, forgot how to do. We forgot how to freaking live, how to have fun, how to enjoy ourselves. Like the shit that lights us up as a young boy. We get older and we forget how to have fun and we just get so caught up in the rat race and we just become so rigid and your kids are looking at you and they're like, they don't want to be anything like that, man. Like go out and have some freaking fun with your family. Do fun shit like this. It's totally free. Last question. It's 2025.

Feel like that obviously the tides are turning we have a new President coming in we've got new energy coming in you can feel social media is getting fixed We've got in a lot more reality checks have been coming in and even Zuckerberg recently took out You know tampons out of men's bathrooms with our Dana White as one Dana White to join the board We're having a lot of reality checks that have come in about you know common sense things or reality things and

What would you say to people now that we're coming into this new wave about how to get their house in order? This is the time to do it. Like I know you, when you talk about money on the money Mondays, you talk about people having 12 months of expenses in an account. We do something even a next level in our house. We try to have, we have literally, we could not leave our house if we want to for over a year and I have the step foot of our house. We have 12 months of expenses.

Food, water, all of our supplements, our vitamins, 12 months, everything. We're talking toilet paper, Q-tips, razors, toothpaste, anything we could possibly need. Medication, first aid, batteries, bullets, band-aids, everything.

a minimum of a year of each thing. Something's up to five years of, we even have, but that's the next goal is to get to five years right there is, is what would it, how we prepare for this kind of stuff and way, the way I see going forward is being prepared, be prepared for anything. If the apocalypse happens, you don't have to leave the house. A hundred,

100 and we've been doing this for a while people make fun of that kind of thing i'm not like some crazy doomsday prepper but we just always want to be prepared when everyone was around with the coronas yeah and they were couldn't wipe their ass because they couldn't get toilet paper i had years worth of toilet paper in my house we were good we were clear well i mean los angeles is literally looks like an apocalypse right now it's crazy there's whole cities that are decimated there is no pacific palisades like it just it's freaking wild mind-boggling to think about the inefficiencies that have happened and

I could go on and on about that. All right. Where can people find you on social? What should people be doing? Talk us through it.

it's not hard to find me i don't even i don't need to put a social out there you can find me on instagram youtube tons of our operation black site stuff i post tons of it on youtube it's all it goes viral every time because it's so effective showing me and my kids training together hostage situations and youtube instagram look for the ugly ball white guy that curses a lot they could find it's not hard i'm sure it'll be down in the in the show notes down there all the same screen name is all steve eckert yeah it's all under steve eckert all right guys i want to do this special edition episode because

Los Angeles is not just on fire. It's insane. And what's happening in London, people aren't even talking about enough. It's insane. People are literally getting stabbed in the streets two in the afternoon. And it's happening left and right, left and right. I'm not talking about a few instances. When something happens in the media and it's like this rare situation or this one thing happened,

That's not humanity. There's 8 billion humans. So when a one-off happens, it's different. There are hundreds of people getting stabbed in London. There are hundreds and hundreds of people getting robbed in Los Angeles. These aren't one-off situations. And I think you can hear by my voice, like, I'm very passionate about this scenario. That's why Operation Blackside is such an important thing to me. It's been half a decade of being important, but now more than ever, you have to get training. You've got to learn martial arts. You've got to understand how to work with a gun.

You have to understand what to do in these high-pressure situations because I've got friends that are literally 6'5", 300-pound football players getting robbed for their watches at 2 in the afternoon. That's nuts.

Because they're just so brazen. Because a lot of times they're 17, 18-year-old kids that just know they're not going to go to jail or they're going to go to juvie. And so the amount of stories, it would take me 16 episodes of how many friends got robbed in Los Angeles. Wow. How many people are going through crazy situations. And so I implore you, research OperationBlackSide.com. Obviously, if you want to come here to the ranch to train with Steve Eckert and the team here. But in your own cities, martial arts training,

If you have to drive two, three hours, go get gun training. Just understand how to work with a gun. It's just super important to be able to protect your household. So visit us here at themoneymondays.com. Check out Steve Eckert across social media. We'll see you guys next Monday. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a very different type of Money Mondays episode. I will not be talking about investing money. I will not be talking about making money. I will not be talking about how to give it away to charity.

Los Angeles is on fire and it's very, very, very, very intense. And so I just wanted to talk about some of the realities from a financial perspective of what's happening in Los Angeles and what's going to be happening over the next few years. Hopefully just a few years because it might take five to 10 years to rebuild. Tens of thousands of acres have been burnt.

And what people don't realize is how massive that is on the rebuilding side and the rules and laws in California and specifically in Los Angeles. So I want to talk through some of the business sides of these things. We all know that there's been inefficiencies with some of the politicians. I'm not going to get into governors and mayors and those type of things and what's happened there. What I want to talk about is the reality of rebuilding in Los Angeles is going to be very, very, very tough.

It already takes way too long, one to two years, just to get permits and approvals to make a building or a house. Well, the difference is they're already overwhelmed and now tens of thousands of homes, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced. So from a sheer math perspective of those people that are going to now go get an architect to design their new home, hopefully get insurance money, which we'll get back into later, and then apply for permitting

This is going to be very, very intense for many, many reasons. The construction companies are not going to be able to handle it. They're going to be very overwhelmed. There's not enough architects and designs to prepare to create tens of thousands of designs, right? Because they're not making track homes outside of people, you know, making apartment buildings. But individuals that are going to try to rebuild their homes with hopefully insurance money, there's a big problem there.

They have to have the capital to pay for designers, constructions, you know, redoing everything, buying tile, furniture, supplies, you know, kitchen, like redoing their homes if they get their insurance money. And if they don't, most people don't have that type of cash. Even if you think that they're rich and they live in a $3 million house, it doesn't mean that they have $3 million in cash to rebuild or that they would. The other problem is, well, there's been a rule that happened, a new law that happened years ago.

that if someone loses their house in a fire, if they don't rebuild it within two years, the new property tax goes into effect of the new valuation of the home. Well, for a vast majority, especially in places like Pacific Palisades, Hollywood Hills, Malibu, a lot of those people inherited their home or bought it many, many decades ago. Let me give you a math example. Let's say someone inherited their house or bought their house for $2 million.

but they live in Pacific Palisades or Malibu. That $2 million house is likely to be 6 million, 7 million, 8 million, 9 million, 10 million, and sometimes a lot more than that. And so they've been paying their property taxes based on a $2 million house, which could be around, let's call it $20,000 to $30,000 for the year, $40K, $50K, $60K, depending on the area. If their new house takes more than two years, which it will,

for obvious reasons, it takes way too long for permitting in Los Angeles and now they're going to be inundated at the permitting departments to try to approve these places. They don't have the manpower for it, which is very scary to think about. If they don't rebuild it within two years and they were normally paying, let's call it 20, 30, 40, 50k a year in property tax, they now have to do it based on the new valuation of, let's call it 5 million, 6 million, 7 million, 8 million, 9 million, etc. By the way, when I say these numbers, you can adjust it based on the scenario. Their new property tax could be a quarter of a million dollars for the year.

that is unaffordable even if you think that they're rich, that is unaffordable and not realistic and so they will likely not rebuild there. Well, if they don't rebuild there, what happens? Is that just going to be dirt? Is someone else going to buy the lot? Is someone else going to buy the lot and rebuild there? There's so many factors from the Money Monday's concept to think about. Like you can hear why I'm stressed out thinking about it and talking about it. This is such a dire situation and people don't realize Los Angeles does not have the resources.

And it's not like construction companies can just show up and start building. A construction company from Phoenix or Dallas or Las Vegas can't just show up and all of a sudden be prepared to go build hundreds of homes or thousands of homes or tens of thousands of homes. It's just not like that. It's not that simple.

The ones that are there, that are based in LA, they are going to be inundated, overwhelmed to try to go rebuild entire towns, whole counties, whole regions. Schools are decimated. Mall, remember the mall in Pacific Palisades? It doesn't exist anymore. Like, I don't think people realize what it's going to take to rebuild this place. And even if something happens, which hopefully it will, that Trump comes in and, you know, they try to have...

a lot of federal capital come in to help with the rebuilding process and subsidize a lot of the rebuilding unless they fix the permitting process which i don't think that they will and i wish that they would i don't see how they will where they would basically have to rubber stamp and approve they could if they trusted in approved builders the fast forward way would be if this is a builder that's been building for many many years and they are approved builder

if they just gave them a rubber stamp say okay we know they're really good at building houses that they're really good at building apartments or the mall for example and they have a track record they are rubber stamped to go build because they know that they're going to be within code it's unlikely that anyone's going to approve that or do that especially with the current administration in our

Los Angeles area. And so I'm very, very, very concerned from a financial perspective of what's going to happen to the city. I don't think people realize, you know, there's a lot of these things you see in the media about it's $50 billion in damage or $60 billion damage. And it's going to probably end up being a lot more because the fires are not contained at the time of this episode. So could it go to a hundred billion? Sure. We don't really know what that number is because of the rebuilding part is hard to grasp.

the tourism changes a lot like who's going to go visit malibu right now when some of the iconic restaurants like moonshadows are gone moonshadows that's been there our entire lives is gone restaurants are gone stores are gone it's like just so much is gone and so i am been racking my brain about what is going to happen and who's going to step in you need so many people involved to rebuild one house there's the construction company

There's obviously the design, the architect, someone to deal with all the permitting. But then within a household, someone's going to deal with the trees and the grass. Do they have a pool? Who's dealing with the plumbing? Who's going to bring in the sinks? Who's going to bring in the refrigerators? Who's going to bring in the furniture? Who's going to get the security systems?

That sounds like a mundane thing. Like, oh, who cares about... Yeah, it's easy to get refrigerators. Is it? What if there's tens of thousands? Oh, it's no problem to put in a stove. It's no problem to put in the piping HVAC. HVAC companies are going to be... What are they going to do? They're not prepared to go build tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, whatever the number ends up being, of new systems. This episode is really just for people to be thinking about it. This is not to come up with an answer right now. I've just been...

racking my brain about the situation of what is going to happen when these fires are contained and we finally go into a rebuilding phase and also keep in mind what happens this summer if there's more fires what happens next year if there's more fires we've seen arsons getting arrested arsonists are getting arrested left and right on camera setting fires up who knows if this happens again in one week one month six months etc it's a very scary situation because

We don't have the resources for the fire department. We don't have the resources from the water side, which doesn't make sense, obviously, because California is right on the water and there's been a lot of access to water for many, many years, but not recently. There's so many, I don't want to, this isn't about conspiracy theories. This is about math and money and reality. What are we going to do? Who's going to rebuild this place? And we need something or someone or a group to come in that's very efficient with a rebuilding plan. Similar to how you saw,

With Elon Musk and the crew that's come in with Trump to try to basically right the wrongs and showcase to the world, especially in America, the bad things that have happened or the corruption that's happened or the things that have been going on within the government. Well, that is going to have to happen here and specifically in California at a very massive scale.

The rebuilding phase for California from businesses, homes, apartments, restaurants, malls, schools, across the board,

Just think about the sheer amount of construction crews that are going to be needed. What about the cleanup crews, the dumpster trucks? There's just, you just think about what one household looks like of all the things, all the vendors, all the people involved to get all the approvals for one house and then extrapolate that into tens of thousands of houses. And if they want to, you know, deal with insurance, get it done within two years, et cetera. I just don't see how it's going to happen. And so again,

If you're watching out there, Mr. Trump, Elon, and all those guys that are out there, if one of your friends shows you a clip from here, I just want you to think about who can become the efficient group in the construction world to really make this right. We need someone that can truly see a plan, a master architect or a master planner that can help us rebuild Pacific Palisades, rebuild Malibu. Hopefully we don't lose Encino and Tarzana because those are under fire.

As you're listening to this episode right now, I think you can hear it in my voice. I'm just normally I can see plans for things and I don't see a clear vision for this unless a group comes in and becomes the efficient one that figures out how to do massive reconstruction. It would be very different if we were just rebuilding apartment buildings because those are all the same units, right? Someone goes and rebuilds a 600 unit apartment building.

That is different because one master planner can figure it out and that's a different scenario. Individual houses times tens of thousands across entire counties where they all have so many different rules and also need so many different things. It's just staggering. Who's going to provide all the sprinkler systems? Who's going to re-grass and re-sod all the, like,

Every part of a household the concrete the door handles the doorknobs the window framings the garage doors Who's gonna do that many garage doors tens of thousands of garage doors or hundreds of thousands? Unfortunately could be the scenario. I just don't think we are prepared I don't think I know we're not prepared for the situation and so

We need to be thinking about what happens. And also, if someone can't rebuild because they, let's say they don't rebuild within two years and they can't afford the new property tax, they're just not going to rebuild. What happens then to that empty lot? What happens to that person? Do they move to Austin, Texas? Do they move to Florida? Like, do they move out of state? We're talking about so many of the wealthiest homes in America, right?

are in this areas of California specifically, what happens if that many of them leave? They pay a lot of property tax. They pay a lot of state tax. They pay a lot of, they generate a lot of revenue and income in the city. There's just a lot to think about. And so normally my podcasts have a very clear point and I ask very clear questions. This is really just for people to be thinking about what happens next. And hopefully the fires can be put out soon. There's a lot of pressure on the fire department to make this work. I just don't see, they don't have the resources for it.

And so I've been very active. If you've seen me on social being very active about raising money for these foundations, getting supplies for these people that are going through very tough times and stressful times. We've been we got I had over three million views on my post about bringing the animals here to the wild jungle. So if anybody's listening, direct message at wild jungle.

If you know of animals in Los Angeles that need to be taken care of, preferably not dogs and cats because there's a ton of shelters for that. But any farm animals, horses, large animals like that, we have been accepting any and all of those type of animals here at the wild jungle. And I just people are going to go through very tough times.

And so if you can help people, whether they can stay at your house, whether you can give them supplies, whether you can donate, I'm not raising capital for anything that I'm doing. I'm saying that if you research what you care about, research what you think might be able to help, or if you see a situation that you could possibly help in, people are going to be going through very, very tough times. Even if the magical insurance fairy shows up with checks, which they're not going to anytime soon, if at all,

It's gonna take a humongous amount of time to rebuild. And so people are gonna be trying to find rental houses or living in hotels, living with their friends, moving out of state. There's just gonna be so much chaos in Los Angeles, which is supposed to be the top 10 city on the planet. And right now it is under fire and some of the counties are completely decimated. And so from a financial perspective,

There's gonna be a lot going on in those towns. And if you are a vendor that deals with any of these type of situations that you can help with the rebuilding phase, if you're out of state, maybe you should open up a division in Los Angeles. If you do something that's in the rebuilding phase for houses or buildings or apartment buildings or restaurants, et cetera, you may want to open up an LA office or a satellite office in Los Angeles because we need you.

The city needs you. And that could be if you deal with kitchens, plumbing, everything inside and outside of a household, you should really consider setting up shop in Los Angeles. Not to monetize off of despair, but the reality is we need the people, we need the vendors to do it. And so I'd rather you guys make money from...

being there to deal with the HVAC, deal with the plumbing, deal with the security systems, deal with the houses, the garage doors, all the things we mentioned. If you know of vendors that can move there, if you know of companies that can be prepared, if you know of construction companies that are in Los Angeles, tell them to load up employees. Tell them to get hire as many as they can, humanly possible, because it is coming and it's going to be massive. The rebuilding phase is going to take years and years.

tens of billions of dollars who knows if it's much more than that could be 50 billion 100 billion whatever it's the number is so insane it's so hard to grasp what it's going to take and so i just implore you research the situation see if there's any way that you can help maybe there's friends vendors whatever that you might know that can just get prepared for the rebuilding phase because we've seen this happen around the country in different types of cities and in los angeles

Literally entire communities have been burned to the ground. And so I'm sorry that this Monday Mondays is a very different type of tone or tonality. I like to focus on very positive things. But I also like to ask real questions and talk about real situations, real topics. And nothing is more real than what is going on right now in Los Angeles. The videos I've been seeing, the videos you've been seeing online,

The posts that people are making, the despair of people losing their entire houses. Some of them live them for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. That's their entire life. And people are going through very, very tough times. And even just money is not going to replace it. Just getting a check from an insurance or the government, hopefully the federal government subsidizes. Just getting a check does not fix anything.

It doesn't even put a band-aid on losing your household, losing the place that you grew up, losing those memories. And it's tough. Even when you get a check, you don't know how to necessarily rebuild. You don't know how to hire the right architect. You don't know how to hire the right designer. You might not know how to deal with the right general contractor or permitting. All the things that go on with this, it's going to be very tough. And so help people when you can. Be close with your loved ones.

We're going into such a great time in our society and our economy. Coming into the new presidency, we've felt the new wave of cryptocurrencies through the roof, Bitcoins through the roof, stock markets going through the roof, real estate's getting better.

That's why I launched the elevator mortgage at the exact same time because it was like, okay, everything's happening all at the same time. There's this great wave that's coming, but now there is a damper on it from this very terrible, tragic situation where our literal city of Los Angeles is on fire. And unfortunately, at the time of this episode coming out, it's still on fire. And so without the wind slowing down and more water showing up and more fire departments showing up from other cities, it's

I don't know if it's going to even be contained this week. So hopefully maybe a rainstorm shows up, which would be amazing. Maybe we can manufacture a rainstorm, which is, I don't know why we can't do that because I know that people do that in other cities and countries. But without going down too many rabbit holes, I just really wanted to make this quick extra episode for you guys to think about

what can be done in los angeles how you can help have the conversations and also just think about are you prepared in your city what happens if a tragedy happens whether it's fire flood hurricane these are real things so check through make sure your insurance is up to date make sure your paperwork's up to date make sure you have a go bag ready make sure you have a fireproof safe like make sure that if something were to occur because nobody expected that to happen in malibu on the ocean but all those houses are gone

It is scary to see how bad it is. And so no matter where you are, be prepared. Be prepared for situations. Have your friends, family, followers around you be prepared. If something were to occur, would you have all of your ducks in a row? Do you have your paperwork for your insurance, paperwork for your household, paperwork for your bank accounts, supplies, food, water, all the things you might need if something were to happen? Hopefully it never does. But if an earthquake did happen,

or a tornado did happen would you be prepared and you want to make sure that means you're prepared paperwork wise online wise real life wise across the board and so again

I'm kind of sorry, but I'm not sorry because we need to have these discussions. And it's the reality of the situation. And it is a very grave situation in Los Angeles. So if you can, support them with products, finances, pet products. If you know of anyone that are in the construction world, they're going to have a very heavy load to lift and have the discussion with their friends, family, followers. Visit us at themoneymondays.com and we'll see you guys next Monday.