SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

??? Episode Theme:
Home Security for Entrepreneurs Working from Home
Tom emphasizes that many entrepreneurs now work from home, and it's essential to take home security seriously — not just for property, but for personal safety.
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??? Key Topics Covered:
?? Doors & Windows:
• Use strong, solid core or steel doors with long deadbolts and extra-long screws.
• Install quality window locks, and consider security window films to prevent break-ins.
• Avoid bushes near windows where intruders can hide.
?? Remote & Smart Tech:
• Install video doorbells (like Ring) to remotely monitor and communicate with visitors.
• Use door slots for deliveries to avoid direct contact.
• Be cautious of fake delivery people; retrieve packages immediately to prevent theft.
?? Porch Pirate Prevention:
• Retrieve packages quickly or use secure drop boxes to discourage theft.
?? Planning & Preparation:
• Develop a security plan, especially if kids are home.
• Create a safe room with a reinforced door, supplies, and a backup phone.
• Have a strategy for different emergencies.
?? Dogs & Deterrents:
• Criminals hate dogs. Even faking it helps:
o Place big dog bowls and muddy work boots outside to suggest someone tough lives there.
?? Weapons & Self-Defense:
• Consider non-lethal weapons like pepper ball guns (e.g., from Byrna).
• Always have your protection on you, especially when leaving home.
?? Driveway Security:
• Use driveway alarms (some can be buried) and gates for early warning of intruders.
?? Self-Defense Training:
• Tom teaches Brutal Self-Defense, a comprehensive 14-video course covering:
o Strikes, chokes, wrist locks, improvised weapons, and more.
• Training builds confidence and competence, no matter your size or strength.
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?? Final Thoughts:
Tom reminds listeners:
• Working from home often means no one is around to help in an emergency.
• Be proactive, not paranoid — preparation could save your life or protect your family.
• Check out BrutalSelfDefense.com for more.

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Episode 1022 – Security At Home
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 1022 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today we're going to talk about security at your home. Many of you are working out of your home. That's the goal of this whole darn thing. Screw the commute. All right. So but I want to keep you safe when you're doing it. And let's see. Hope you didn't miss episode 1021. That was traits of a Successful Entrepreneur. 1021 anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com, slash, the episode number 1021 for the traits of a successful entrepreneur. And also make sure you pick up a copy of our automation e-book. Version 3.0 is out, so if you've got an older version, grab this that screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Check out my mentor program at GreatInternetmarketingtraining.com and my school at IMTCVA.org. It's the only license dedicated internet and digital marketing school in the country. Probably would save you a couple hundred thousand bucks for you or your kids and have a marketable, highly in-demand, marketable skill in as little as six months. We even have people making money before they graduate, and it's certified to operate by the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's distance learning and quality distance learning, too, I might add.

[00:01:54] All right, let's get to it. So I've worked out of my home my entire 40. I think, what is it now? 48 years in business? 48.5 years. So and one of those I had a nightclub. It was the second biggest nightclub in the state, and I actually lived above the nightclub. So technically I had a nightclub in my basement, so I lived above. I lived where I worked there my entire career. That's why this is called Screw the Commute. So especially during the nightclub years now, I was taking, um, Shorin ryu karate when I was in high school, breaking rocks and walking through streams barefoot and, you know, the winter, just all kinds of stuff like that. So I've always been interested in, in self-defense. But then when the nightclub came around, oh my God, there was one sheriff and one state police for 300mi². The two gunfights. So we had the sheriff came out the next day and said, hey, Tom, I heard you had some excitement out here. Yeah, he said. Anybody get hurt? I said, well, you know, I, I'm still here, but I haven't seen those guys. And he thought about it for a second. He said, um, okay, be careful. And that was it. That was the entire investigation. All right. So so it was every man for himself, every woman for himself. So I really had to go deep, deep, deep into all kinds of advanced martial arts stuff and, and iki jitsu and just things. Because I'd get sued if I busted people up, you know, so I had to be able to control them with wrist locks and things like that.

[00:03:43] I carried a gun all the time. So I'm very security conscious, and I'm not expecting to be a fanatic like me. But the thing is, is there's so many home invasions during the day nowadays, and if you live in a nice neighborhood, you might think, oh well, I'm safe. Well, maybe you know, that one guy that robs bank said, well, that's where the money is. So, so you might not be as safe as you think. So I'm going to give you a bunch of tips that you can dig deeper in. There's enormous amounts of information on this stuff. It's just that, that. Did you ever stop and think about it? Is it? Oh, it's never going to happen to me. Is that your mentality? Well, the the criminal wants to meet you for sure. Okay. So so I'm going to give you a bunch of tips. It's not comprehensive by any means. But if you did, even part of what I'm going to talk about today, you'd be way safer. You and your family. Okay, so the first thing is, and this isn't necessarily the first thing, this is a whole comprehensive bunch of things here that I don't care what you do first, but but, uh, good. Doors, strong doors, steel doors or solid core. Wooden doors are a good thing to have, hard to break into, and it doesn't matter how strong the door is if the lock is crappy, okay, especially the dead bolts.

[00:05:09] They, you know, you really the standard ones only go a little bit into the side of your door. Easy to kick in. Easy. Very easy to kick in. So just get extra long dead bolts. Put in extra long screws into the you know that that thing and you'll be way better off. And all the doors that access your house. Think about windows two. Do you have a lot of ground floor windows? Well, there's lots of ways to protect them. It's not the greatest idea to have bushes all around them, and I happen to have them. But I mean, I have so many levels of protection here that I'm not too worried about the bushes, but, you know, people can hide in the bushes while they're breaking in a window or something. But there are ways to protect windows. There's decorative iron things you can put on. But even less obvious than that are these films. I think R.E.M. makes a film that you can put on your window, and it makes it almost impossible to beat it in and break it. All right, you got to make a lot of noise and just beat forever. But other than just a simple window that's easy to break and also locks on your. Your windows also need to be good quality. Okay. Speaking of doors, how about a remote door system? You see these all the time where these ring doorbells, they talk to people and they can see who's at the door.

[00:06:34] So that's not a good place to be. Is standing at the door with a stranger on the other side of the door, because if they if they got guns or whatever, you're right there where it's nice to be remote to be, but to be able to see who the heck is on the other side of that door. Peepholes are good, but I'm skeptical of people's is. That's where I would put the gun if I wanted to shoot somebody. Right. Shoot you right in the eye, right? No. Get the remote thing. So in several places in the house, you can see who's at the the door and communicate with them if they're reasonable. Great. Now, sometimes you have to sign for things, and I would suggest getting a door slot and have them hand stuff through a door slot, unless it was very clear. A great big Fedex truck or a great big UPS truck, because so many deliveries now are just with regular people doing in their own cars, and just because they have a little vest on that says Amazon or something. I'll open the door for them. All right. So you got to think about that stuff. And and speaking of deliveries. If you're home working all day, pretty much drop everything and go get the package right away as soon as it's delivered. That way, you're going to discourage porch pirates from from jumping up there and getting it, or you'll catch them in the act.

[00:08:04] You might not want to be in a fight with a porch pirate, but it just discourages them. There's never packages seen at your house if they're casing the neighborhood, say so. Just get them right away. Or I mean, if you're really gung ho about it, you can have these special boxes near your mailbox that are one way, you know, put it in there and nobody can get it out unless they have a key. But if you get something really big, that won't work. All right. So that's some remote doorbell stuff. And then overall, you know, and I got a bunch more stuff to tell you. But overall you should have some kind of plan. What am I going to do if and do you have kids in the house? What are their ages? What are their capabilities? Where are they? If you're working, if they're home from school that day, or if they're preschool, you know, a lot of people still work at home with preschoolers. You know, where are they when you're working? Are they separated in a different part of the house? And maybe you're just watching them with a nanny cam? I don't know, but I wouldn't want to be that far away from them. If somebody you know came in, have some type of plan of what you're going to do if and then how about a safe room in the house? It's not that difficult to build a safe room.

[00:09:23] That at least gives you time where even if they some bad people get in your main door with if the door is good enough, it's giving you time to get to a safe room. Get the kids, get everybody in the safe room that's got a heavy duty door and and you can actually bulletproof stuff with even gravel. I mean, you can buy commercial stuff. Very expensive, but you can fill your walls with gravel and it'll stop one of some of the highest level bullets. All right. So safe room. And you have a spare cell phone in there, and and, uh, food, snacks, water. Some communication device that's, uh, that can't be compromised, you know? So think about creating a safe room in the house. Uh, dogs. Criminals hate dogs. All right. And you can even simulate dogs. I, uh, suggest to a lot of single women that I know that aren't really ready to have a big dog, but that doesn't mean you can't put a big old beat up bowl you got at the thrift store, uh, on the front porch of your house or the back porch, wherever you think somebody might sneak in. And then also a big size 12 or 13 muddy work boots. Sit him outside. All right, so you're you're protecting yourself by saying, I don't know. That's a that seems like I don't want to go in there with a dog or a great big construction guy and cause any trouble. So that's a good tip for you.

[00:10:55] Now, another thing you got to consider is weapons. Are you comfortable with weapons? I'm very comfortable with weapons. I'm not some kind of freaky gun nut, but I'm very competent and have tons of training and things like that with regular guns. But there's less than lethal things that you can do. There's this company, I think it's called burn a b r y n a that's got a pepper ball gun, but it's high quality. It's not these little $20 ones you get at the 7-Eleven. Yeah. So so so look into possible having something like that handy for you and don't if you do have to go outside. You gotta have your stuff with you because it's not any good if it's because even as working from home, you know, we still have to go to the store, run errands, go to the post office and things and things like that. You need to have a plan for in your vehicle also. Now another thing, if you if you have a driveway, you got to consider gates. They're a pain in the neck I know, but if you have a gate at the end of your driveway, it's kind of like a, you know, like mine. Both have signs that say 24 hour surveillance here. And I'm well known in the neighborhood to have protection dogs. And so nobody comes around here and messes with with it. But let's say you have a long driveway. Well, there's driveway alarms that can be right next to the entrance to your lane or buried.

[00:12:29] There's some really high quality ones. You bury them so that nobody can even see him or mess with them, and then they ring certain alarms in your house. You have the receiver and it rings a bell. Somebody just went through my, uh, coming down my driveway. Gives you time to check it out, to look, see who's coming. Do I recognize that? Is it late at night? Who would. Who should be coming down here at 2:00 in the morning? You know. So. So it gives you time to to react. So that's, uh, driveway alarms. And have you ever taken any self-defense training? I, I usually kept it on the down low for many years of what I'm capable of, but I when all these crazy things started happening in the world, I thought, you know, I need to get this out in a course for people. So, uh, brutal self-defense is a 14 hour, uh, you know, it was two days and total of 14 videos we created of everything you can imagine improvised weapons, how to stay safe, how to stay safe with kids, where to strike people, how to fall down, how to get away, get to safety. What to do in case of an active shooter? I mean, just everything you can imagine. Wrist locks and chokes and strikes and you know, everything you can think of. Even, you know, my little bookkeeper doesn't know bigger than a bar of soap.

[00:13:54] I mean, she's, like, £98. Was beating the heck out of people, so. So get some self-defense training one way or the other. And you don't have to be gigantic to to to really be skillful at this. There's a lady. I can't think of her name offhand. She's about £110. She would be one of the last people I would want to fight. I'd rather fight Mike Tyson than this. Right. Because, uh, she's just from nothing to vicious. And she. Oh, man, I wish I could think of her name, But anyway, get some training. And don't you know it's not. It's good exercise wise. And it's a good confidence builder and and it could save your life one these days. So. So there you go. This is just a just try to get you thinking about hey, you're sitting at home by yourself. Everybody else in the neighborhood is going to a 9 to 5. And so there's nobody to scream for help. So it's it's something you really need to think about. And especially if you got kids because you got yourself and them to take care of at the same time. So anyway, there's a good primer on it. Check out brutalSelfDefense.com and of course my mentor program and school. And I will catch you on the next episode because I hope we're both alive because we didn't let anybody get us. All right. Catch you later.