THROUGH A THERAPIST'S EYES PODCAST 84
Thomas Martin: Guest on Through a Therapist’s Eyes Podcast Episode #84
In this episode Chris and Craig continue the conversation with Tom about divorce, cults, mass shootings, drugs, the opioid epidemic, terrorism, and also Tom’s experience with Charles Manson.
Tune in to see Private Investigation Through a Therapist’s Eyes!
A transcript of the podcast follows:
Craig Graves:
All right. Hey, Chris. How you doing, man?
Chris Gazdik:
You know what? I was thinking about our intros, Craig, and I remember back in the day when we started this thing, you freaked me out one day. You went like, “Three, two, one.” I was like, “What is this guy doing?” We’ve progressed to like, “Hey, what’s up, man?”
Craig Graves:
Sure. There you go.
Chris Gazdik:
Mr. Tom Martin is back with us for a part two. This is Through a Therapist’s Eyes Podcast. Craig Graves is still with us, Chris Gazdik is me, and we invite you to see the world through the lens of a real mental health and substance abuse therapist with the goal for emotional growth through the medium of the podcast, knowing this is not the delivery of therapy service, please, in any way. We want to grow this year. I wanted to highlight something. I didn’t do this last show, Craig, but I saw that we had under, what was it, seven or eight downloads immediately in the State of Iowa of all places. So I wanted to challenge all those folks that just listened in Iowa to our last episode, has been a couple of weeks ago now when this released, to turn that into 16 by sending the show link to one friend or family member that they know. You think that would work, will turn into double digits in the state.
Craig Graves:
We may be as contagious as the coronavirus.
Chris Gazdik:
Ooh, there you go. The human emotional experience. Let’s figure this thing out together with three voices. So we gave a little bit more of an intro for this gentleman who’s spending time with us, Mr. Tom Martin. I think what I wanted to say this time is as the checkout, last week show, and you’ll see what I’m talking about, this guy’s, dude, Craig, impressive guy, would you say?
Craig Graves:
Oh, absolutely. I enjoyed the last conversation very, very much.
Chris Gazdik:
Intently, it is old.martinpi.com. I know Tom, you told me you didn’t want to sell anything. But I want these guys to know and our listening audience, old.martinpi.com, and you have really a lot of really cool stuff there that’s free for the public to help them. We talked about a very difficult topic last week with human trafficking. You find people, and you work with people. Thank you, by the way, for your service for our country for years and years as you’re now almost to retire. Are you ever going to retire though, by the way?
Tom Martin:
Well, I always say [inaudible 00:02:23] when I don’t play golf, so probably not.
Chris Gazdik:
Right. What do you got on this website, and what is there to help people, free that they can take advantage of?
Tom Martin:
Well, if they go to old.martinpi.com, then on the very first page is a red arrow, and it says podcast listeners. Then they just click on that. Then they can go to a number of free items that can help them. First of all, our book, our first book, if you only knew, is on there for free, 16 chapters. You can go to the area that might apply to you, whether it’s runaway teenagers, security, missing friends, divorce cases, et cetera. We have stuff on there for your listeners regarding, for your site, how to locate people for free, 888-US-UNITE. Click on there, go through everything, and find people before they spend any money on the internet. One of the big things in our latest book was 155 most-asked questions in a divorce. That’s on the website now for free.
Chris Gazdik:
What it is people always do a number, Tom? That always drives me nuts, like the five greatest things for financial wealth, the seven signs of depression. Why is there always got to be a number man?
Tom Martin:
I just say people like it. I mean, I tried to come up with… I started writing it when I wrote the book a few years ago. The second one, I tried to come up with all these questions that people have in a divorce. I said, “Well, I’ll do the top 10 or 20.” Then it got to a hundred. Yeah. Who has a list of 155? Nobody. But it’s there, and it’s really great. The attorneys love it. You go through. If you got to go through the process of a divorce, you just highlight the ones that are applicable to you, and then when you go to your attorney, you’re going to be light years ahead. There’s stuff on there about electronic eavesdropping detection sweeps. If you think your home office has been bugged. A lot of good stuff there, and it’s all for free, and we’re glad to do it.
Chris Gazdik:
I saw a picture on your website with stuff that you’ve actually found, like little widgets and bugs and stuff. Is that FBI stuff real, man?
Tom Martin:
Oh, that’s actually stuff that we found. I mean, the technology today is just mind-blowing. I have three technicians that have ton of equipment that finds the stuff, and we find them in coffee pots and TVs, and we’re finding cameras now, and these guys put cameras in their wives bedroom so they can see who they’re having sex with. It’s just-
Chris Gazdik:
Oh, wow. That’s-
Tom Martin:
… very, very bizarre.
Chris Gazdik:
Let me give a current event thing, jump here to my take on the coronavirus as we hope people are kind of… I mean, by this time, man, we’re two weeks away from airing. That’s why we’re recording this on April the 11th. I mean, about right now, this week and next week, people are really going to start hitting a tough emotional time, I want to say. So as we’re releasing this show a couple of weeks from now doing the math, I guess you’ve been in a tough time. I mean, not working, unemployment, hardships with domestic violence. We’re all supposed to play Parcheesi on our house and chill out and have fun, family time together. Well, that ain’t the case a lot of times for people. We’re really, really struggling now.
Chris Gazdik:
So I just want to encourage everyone in the nation and our audience, we’re going to get through this. Okay. I think we’ll be in a better day. There is zero doubt about that. But I wanted to give some mental health effects on the shutdown, sort of, shoot there real quick just to get your brain to be thinking. The second part of it is positives about this, bottom line. So the mental health effects of the shutdown. Sound interesting, Craig, Mr. Graves?
Craig Graves:
Yes, it does.
Chris Gazdik:
Increases in porn use, increases in sex in general, concept of COVID-19 babies. People are talking about that. You ever heard that term yet, COVID-19 babies?
Craig Graves:
I’m sure there’ll be a lot of them.
Chris Gazdik:
Yeah. Yeah. Feelings of productivity taken away, unemployment and the devastations of that, emotional concerns, increase in societal experience of anxiety. I mentioned that last time, especially the OCD type of anxiety. Increases in depression, increases in domestic violence. We’re really hitting right now on April 11th at the tough time with this one. People are done with their long projects and stuff. Secondly though, positive outcomes I want people to kind of start thinking about. Appreciation for healthcare workers. That’s something that we’ve never had. That’s new and interesting to see developing.
Chris Gazdik:
New appreciation for telehealth services. Guys, in my practice, I’m transitioning over to telehealth. About a month ago, I would’ve told you I don’t want to do that. I am shocked, honestly at how effective it is. That’s a neat and new development that we’re going to see. Attention and home work-life balance and respect of that, family leave appreciation. Those are things that I think our society might be changing towards. Cultural realization or awakening to where, when we work together on a large scale, we, the public, what our nation is founded on, we, the public can really make a difference. People coming together. The power of the people all on the same powerful lengths together, I think we’re experiencing that with our willingness to shut down and help this… what do they call it? Flatten the curve.
Chris Gazdik:
Depoliticizing events. Craig, I actually made that on my positive lists. I don’t know. I wrote maybe, maybe, maybe, probably wishful thinking there on that one. But that’s the way I’m seeing this whole COVID thing. What do you guys think about all that mess I just rattled off?
Tom Martin:
Well, I think it’s a great positive list. In our business, we shut down our offices March 14th and haven’t looked back. But we have seen a interesting increase in the amount of calls about divorce attorneys. So there seems to be… I mean, normally we’d get one or two calls a week, and we’ve gotten three or four calls saying, “I can’t take it. The closeness over the last month has exploded.” Or the guy’s trying to get out of the house to go somewhere. The marriages kind of what sours. So I mean, I like your positiveness. But from our world, a lot of people are not doing so well. So those positive things should definitely be thought about.
Chris Gazdik:
Yeah, I tell you. It’s something that we did some shows on it. I refer people to episode 11, the foundations of marriage counseling and some Gottman material. John Gottman nailed fundamental patterns that people go through in marriages. Cyclically, I’m talking about just over and over and over again and almost pretty universally. So that lays out some really, really cool stuff. It changed the way I do marriage counseling, honestly. But when you have that much time and that much closeness, the stress that you typically feel is that much more.
Tom Martin:
No, I agree. I told someone the other day, happened in my life. My wife took a shot at me, but thank God she’s not a good shot, and she missed. So it can happen anywhere. So I think we just all got to be a little more patient and forgiving.
Chris Gazdik:
Do you mean that literally?
Tom Martin:
No, no. No. [crosstalk 00:09:39]-
Chris Gazdik:
I was sure. Well, you’re a DEA agent, man.
Tom Martin:
Yeah, well.
Chris Gazdik:
All right. Here’s-
Tom Martin:
When I retired, they gave me a gun, but [inaudible 00:09:48] so no problem.
Chris Gazdik:
Gotcha. Any housekeeping stuff for things I’m missing, Craig? Anything that we’ve got going on, we’re going to launch into a myriad of topics.
Craig Graves:
I think we’re ready to roll, dude.
Chris Gazdik:
Okay. Anything left over from last show that you… I feel like at one point I kind of cut you off. There’s so much to cover, things that your brain feels spinning on.
Craig Graves:
No, I think it’s a good… I think, at least from my side, I’m good. I’m just-
Chris Gazdik:
Okay. So here’s what I thought I’d do. Tom, I wanted to take advantage of your incredible experiences that we have. I really just kind of wanted to go down through to cover as many topics as we could. I mean, this is going to feel like a little bit of a schizophrenic episode because we’re going in a bipolar fashion. Those are our mental health jokes. I mean, sorry for that. But it kind of covers many little things as we can kind of touch on. I’m going to list them all really, and then we’ll just go down and touch through them to see what you feel is the most helpful and what you’re most experienced talking about. I definitely want to touch on cults. Let’s kind of start there, but let me see.
Chris Gazdik:
National attention on mass shooters, what your perspective is. Divorce proceedings, investigations with affairs and such. Coming into contact with cults. Like I said, I think I want to start there. Drug enforcement and the borders. Don’t really want to get political, but drug enforcement, I thought you might have some really interesting perspectives there. Explaining your theme. I really want to hit this one too. Your cell phone number is your new social security number. That struck me when I was researching you a little bit. Find that super fascinating. Did you work with terrorism prevention efforts? How do different world cultures affect mental health? Having traveled and dealt with so many issues, I’m curious about your perspective with that. The opioid epidemic, how coronavirus might affect world affairs, societal norms, and stuff, and then location systems and family reunions.
Chris Gazdik:
I know that’s a crazy list, but that’s just stuff that I… If we had like 10 hours, I’d love to hit on all of them. We’re probably not going to be able to hit obviously in detail much of those. But that’s kind of the topics I’m thinking in my head.
Tom Martin:
All right. We’ll succinct and to the point, hopefully.
Chris Gazdik:
Exactly right. Does that sound schizophrenic to kind of hit all those things, man. I want your brain.
Tom Martin:
Because I got to go to sleep in 10 hours. So I got to get this done.
Chris Gazdik:
Charles Manson, I promised in the last episode we’d hit that. The cult reality is another one. We talked about sex trafficking and human trafficking and stuff. I feel like this is another one of those sort of under the radar, not really known about realities that is all around us. Craig, I don’t think we’ve even done a show on cults yet. Is that a correct statement?
Craig Graves:
Yeah, we haven’t.
Chris Gazdik:
Yeah. It’s coming, guys. It’s in my head. What do you know about coming into contact with cults and how prevalent that is with people in the investigations you do?
Tom Martin:
Well, we don’t do a lot of cult investigations, and those that we do, where they’re basically fallen into the locates, where a parent comes to us or a relative comes to us and says, “Hey, Mary Jane or Billy Bob is gone. We think they’re up in San Francisco or North Carolina or whatever. They’ve gotten themselves into this group home.” They don’t call them cults. They call them group homes. It’s very, very difficult to extricate the people from there because they don’t want to. It’s very difficult to get on the land. It’s very difficult to even bring somebody like yourself along where they can talk to them and try to get them out.
Chris Gazdik:
Let me jump in and pause real quick. You say they called them group homes. I have a sort of a perception that cults are sort of religiously guided organizations and whatnot. Why do they call them group homes? What is that?
Tom Martin:
Well, it’s basically a group of people, and I think that’s where they come. It’s a group of people who are getting together, and they want to do everything from farming to sex to whatever their daily occurrences are, and they want to do it together. So as a group, that’s kind of what they’re doing.
Chris Gazdik:
And that’s a cultic?
Tom Martin:
That’s what we find. I mean-
Chris Gazdik:
Interesting.
Tom Martin:
… it’s probably, I don’t know. Most of the cults that we run into, there’s severe, as you would guess, mental health problems. Yeah. I mean, serious mental health problems. I mean, I had the experience when I was a young agent and going to the courthouse when Charlie Manson was arrested and the four or five girls around the corner every day before they all got done. We’d go by them, say, “Hi, how you doing girls?” They would look off into the distance and Charlie’s this and carve stuff into their foreheads. You could see how they could be manipulated and how it would be easy for them to, to are easy for Charlie to get them to go commit [inaudible 00:14:44] murders is what they did. So yeah. They call them group homes and [inaudible 00:14:48] there, and they’re very, very tight knit. I mean, it’s a tough thing to crack as a PI.
Chris Gazdik:
It is a small, tight community that is a closed environment typically. That’s one of the big factors in looking at groups of people with that, and we do. Southern Baptist churches, I’m not saying that Southern Baptist churches are bad, but I’m saying some Southern churches, I mean, we have a local community. Craig, I don’t know if you know the story, but in a town close to us. It’s infiltrated the whole town, a religious organization. We look at Scientology. There’s a lot out about that rather large group and whatnot. How much illegal behavior or problems have you come across, Tom, in dealing with groups of people like that? I guess group homes, that’s weird. Group homes referred to by people. How much illegal behavior comes from all of that?
Tom Martin:
Well, I think the main thing that we see is the drug use, and they’re growing the drugs, or they’re procuring drugs or transporting them. They’re concealing them. Most of the cults, as you say, are what we termed in our office as group homes, where they’re psychological warfare on the people. It evolves around drugs and their daily commune to help each other out and listening to their music, just what you see on TV. But I will say, once we find a place, say it’s in Iowa or Chicago or Minnesota, it’s really tough to get the people out of there. It’s even harder to get [inaudible 00:16:28]. They have security as [inaudible 00:16:30] the CIA, Langley does. It’s just incredible.
Chris Gazdik:
They’ve essentially drank the Kool-Aid and believe in their leader.
Tom Martin:
You’re not going to get in there. I don’t know. We can find out where they’re at, but it’s very hard to get them out. I mean, they have security. I mean, they have ex-federal agents and cops that are paid a nice salary to guard the locked gate. You’re not going to [inaudible 00:16:52].
Chris Gazdik:
Really?
Tom Martin:
Oh, yeah. That’s-
Chris Gazdik:
Ex-agents that they have recruited to be a part of the group that-
Tom Martin:
Part of the group. They’re part of the security team. Very, very common.
Chris Gazdik:
I think I’m confused. They’re part of the group.
Tom Martin:
So you have a cult, let’s say a 50-people that are on a ranch that has 20,000 acres, and they’ve got the cows and the pigs, and they’re growing their own corn, and they’re smoking their dope. To make sure that nobody else gets on there and to make sure, more importantly, that nobody leaves, that is a secured system, and that system is guarded by hugely ex-law enforcement officers. Nothing wrong with it. Everybody deserves to make a living. You’re not going to get through them. I can guarantee you that.
Chris Gazdik:
Oh, I think I understand. So the group themselves have hired a security team to procure the perimeter and whatnot of said place?
Tom Martin:
Yes. Yeah. Usually, the person that has the group and is putting it all together for obviously a lot of monetary gain because sometimes the people will leave and have jobs. They’ll be making something. Well, that person’s going to get all the money, not the 50 people that are in the group. It’s-
Chris Gazdik:
And they have a right to do that. It’s like-
Tom Martin:
A hundred percent, a hundred percent. So to make sure that he has in more control, I think 99.9% of them have security and those guys, there are a formidable task, to be sure.
Chris Gazdik:
So yeah. Listening audience, we’re going to do a show on cults because it is something that is way more common than you would think it to be, for sure. It’s been in my head for actually quite a while now, why we haven’t done it. But got to tell us about Charles Manson. So you sat down and stared him down? I mean, he stared you down? What happened here?
Tom Martin:
Well, this is where I got to eat a little ego. I’m not always happy when they bring it up. But I was the young agent over in the jail, and the word came back that the actual verdict was going to be rendered into the courtroom on Charlie. So I’d seen and been in the courtroom and a couple of times. Charlie had this way of sitting at the chair and then as Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor, getting on him and getting on him or tell him the jury, all the bad stuff. He would wheel around in his chair and look at our jury, where he’d look at the audience.
Tom Martin:
So the day that I went there, I obviously had a contact in this courtroom, and I got front row, maybe 10 feet from Charlie. So I figure I’ve been yelling agent on 23 years old or so. This is 1971, something like that.
Chris Gazdik:
Wow. That’s [crosstalk 00:19:28].
Tom Martin:
I’m going to give it to Charlie, right? Because I’m an agent. I’m going to put up with this, right? So the next thing I know, I never thought in a million years, Charlie wheels around, and for some reason, I’m dressed like a cop in my suit and my tie and everything. He looks right dead at me. So we engaged, and I said, “Okay.” So we stared at each other for about… I would say it’s the longest 15 seconds of my life till I blinked, and I looked away. I mean, it’s the most evil, terrifying person that I’ve ever seen, and just I saw no advantage engaging him, and I’ll give Charlie the victory, he would have won. He won that-
Chris Gazdik:
Interesting.
Tom Martin:
He won that day, and I just set this-
Chris Gazdik:
You know what’s fascinating about that to me is when I’m in a therapy session, right, and people are dealing with their trauma or a shame-based feeling, it’s the alcoholic, if he’s breaking down and getting real with themselves, I mean, it is a very powerful thing to the eyes and contact with the eyes. I mean, it’s why we teach our young little boys and girls to look up, so, “Look him in the eye. Shake his hand and stand. That’s what you’re presenting yourself.”
Chris Gazdik:
There’s also a lot of caring that goes in making that caring eye contact and whatnot. But there’s also that power struggle. It depends on what the relationship is. So that’s fascinating to see that you locked eyes with Charlie Manson and the experience that that was in experiencing that connection. It was almost like an electric toxic connection is what I’m hearing you.
Tom Martin:
Well, it was actually almost like 49 or 50 years ago. I remember it as if happened this morning. To look into his eyes, that close to this kind of monster and the evilness of it, the darkness is just like I was looking through Charlie, but Charlie was shooting with the beams, and it was-
Chris Gazdik:
Wow.
Tom Martin:
Maybe I should go to therapy. But it was just something there I felt like, “I really don’t like this.” I really did not like that experience.
Chris Gazdik:
Wow. That is weird. That’s-
Tom Martin:
Yeah. Charlie one. Okay.
Chris Gazdik:
That’s what you mean by swallowing pride. Yeah. Now, it turns out-
Tom Martin:
There you go.
Chris Gazdik:
… he didn’t win in the end, that’s for sure. Craig, what are you thinking about cults? Did you know anything about them?
Craig Graves:
Not really anything, Chris, more than I’ve heard on the news. Think about David Koresh and things like that when I think about cults. You mentioned Scientology. Joe Rogan talked about cults one day, and he said that all religions were cults. I don’t want to go that far. I don’t know, I don’t agree with that. But-
Chris Gazdik:
Yeah. I guess, Tom, what I’m wondering is, are we able to break them up? Can we really break them down? Because they are so destructive. They’re so powerful in the psyche of the people that subconsciously don’t even know they’re being brain warped. It’s an awful reality. Can we really hit them?
Tom Martin:
Well, I think what I would do, if I wanted to learn about cults, I might think about Scientology, which I think some people would say it’s a cult on steroids.
Chris Gazdik:
They would.
Tom Martin:
If you really want to have an interesting show, try to interview, because I am not one, some of the private investigators in this country that have gone up against Scientology. I think they will give you a perspective of cults like nobody else can, and then they will also give you their perspective of whether or not that is a cult. It’s very, very interesting to talk to those guys. Just on the other side, just very quickly, most of the people in the cults would disagree a hundred percent that this is great. This is great. Everything’s wonderful. Leave us alone. Some of them go on for years.
Chris Gazdik:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The definition is something that is really hotly contested and confusing. If you asked 90 people on the street what’s a call, you’d get a lot of different answers. Even if you asked 10 therapists, you’d probably get a lot of kind of confusing, conflicted understanding on what really makes up a call. That’s what I kind of said, a closed, contained, smaller environment. Sometimes it’s larger scale, but it’s really kind of concealed.
Craig Graves:
[crosstalk 00:23:53]-
Chris Gazdik:
Yeah. Oh, go ahead, Craig.
Craig Graves:
I was just going to ask, because [inaudible 00:23:57] big thing. I mean, because you only hear about… Only cults I’ve ever heard about, they end badly. Right? David Koresh, Jim Jones, the Hale–Bopp Comet cult, whatever that thing was, Charles Manson. I mean, are there cults out there that are-
Tom Martin:
Well, they were-
Craig Graves:
[crosstalk 00:24:15] successful but-
Tom Martin:
Well, I think it’s a good point.
Craig Graves:
[crosstalk 00:24:15].
Tom Martin:
We don’t have a lot of locates now where we’re finding people and they end up in a cult. The ’70s when I was an agent, yes. In the ’80s when I started the PI business, it was very common, but not anymore. I think it’s because we didn’t come up with this group home thing, which I know you may have not heard of. I think that was a term that was started in the ’90s by some of the cults because the word cult is total negativity. If you say you have a group home, that’s more inviting. That’s more domestic.
Tom Martin:
I must say, I can’t remember as I sit here today when the last time we located somebody who was in a cult or a bad situation. Because as Craig says… Yeah. Because Craig says [inaudible 00:25:01] killing people or setting things on fire or are shooting themselves or doing crazy stuff, so-
Chris Gazdik:
I’m curious if it’s diminished a little bit because you had early in my career, it was a pretty big issue and whatnot. The reason why I’m tripping out about the group home, I mean, we have group homes in the mental health field. Right?
Tom Martin:
Yeah, sure. Sure.
Chris Gazdik:
I mean, yeah. So it’s like yeah, that tripped me up. I’ll have to think about that a lot and listen to the playback and learn from that. Let’s try to move on to transition to mass shooters. The national attention. Did you guys, when you were working with the FBI, and kind of the awareness of it has really exploded. We’ve chronicled on this show. That’s been an interesting topic for us. What has been your contact with that kind of early on when it began to take off? Because you’ve been doing the PI work for how long? About seven, eight years, we’ll call it 10?
Tom Martin:
No. I’ve been doing PI work for 40 years, since 1981.
Chris Gazdik:
Oh, well wait a minute. So when did you leave the three letter world and whatnot?
Tom Martin:
Well, I was there from ’69 to ’81. So it’s been almost 40 years.
Chris Gazdik:
Holy cow. Okay. We won’t ask how old you are.
Tom Martin:
73. Proud of it.
Chris Gazdik:
Right. So what do you remember? Was that an issue back then, I guess?
Tom Martin:
It wasn’t. I mean, there was no-
Chris Gazdik:
It was not-
Tom Martin:
… mass shootings, and most of the talented people in the three-letter agencies now, I think there’s a few PIs that do schools for corporations for public educations and stuff. I think they serve some purpose. I think it gets back to my law enforcement days. They can teach you all day and run through all the physical training of [inaudible 00:26:42]. But it’s totally different when it happens. I think the training’s important. I don’t want to minimize that. But in my world and when I was a federal agent, there was no talk of any mass shootings. I think most of the training that’s done today is how to react to the shootings, not the prevention. You can’t prevent it. I don’t believe. I mean, how do you prevent a guy from getting the guns that he can get? I mean, so-
Chris Gazdik:
It’s in his heart to know and have any kind of predictors. That’s something we’ve struggled in the mental health field. I mean, we’ve talked about, Craig, on the show, self-harm and homicidal ideation and things that we try to do to screen people. But it is really hard to find any kind of predictive nature of who’s going to be shooting groups of people. I mean, it’s remarkable.
Tom Martin:
Yeah. Don’t you guys find in your practice that it’s almost very difficult to pinpoint those or predict who they are. They’re always kind of outside of the box.
Chris Gazdik:
Absolutely. I mean, you look back to your days of profiling with the FBI and whatnot and how you kind of studied that on a deep level. We had a lot of information in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s on how to profile and whatnot. But I don’t know. How do you predictively profile? How successful can that possibly be?
Tom Martin:
That world is pretty easy. I mean, it’s much common sense when you’re a profiler. It’s got basic stuff here at the LA airport, and you have informants be at the ticket agents or the baggage handlers, and somebody gets on an airplane in Miami and pays cash for ticket to LA, and they don’t have any bags. He might be able to profile that that person’s probably adult feller. I think your children can probably do the same thing.
Tom Martin:
I’ve talked to a lot of profilers that are currently profilers in the 2020 as we speak. There’s no way that they sit back and say, “I know that Craig or Chris has all the propensity to be a shooter.” They might be able to say, “Here’s a list of stuff, male, white, 30, dah, dah, dah, dah.” But take that, what they’ve profiled and put that into the real world to stop it. I don’t think it’s going to happen. I haven’t seen that model ever.
Chris Gazdik:
Well, Craig, was it you that found that article that we did a show on that was about the mass shooter? I think it was, wasn’t it?
Craig Graves:
Which one?
Chris Gazdik:
We did a show on this national study that came… No, it was our mastermind buddy, David send it to me, and I brought it to the show, and we got… They recently did a study, Tom, that actually did kind of list some of the main characteristics that the government, I think it was a government-funded study of some sort did. It was pretty neat. So I guess point is we’re getting a clearer picture of all of that.
Tom Martin:
Would that help the law enforcement community using that data stop?
Chris Gazdik:
I think so.
Craig Graves:
It was kind of broad? If my memory is right, it had a rough childhood, things like that. It was [crosstalk 00:29:41]-
Chris Gazdik:
Four specific things that were pretty universal.
Craig Graves:
He’s a 25-year-old white male with red hair. It wasn’t anything like… It was very broad.
Tom Martin:
Correct.
Craig Graves:
Very broad.
Chris Gazdik:
There was four specific characteristics to look out for it. It’s a starting point, I think is what [crosstalk 00:29:58]-
Craig Graves:
Maybe a starting point. I don’t know if I’d use the word specific, but it was kind of broad. I always bring this up when we talk about this topic, but there was a lady on the Joe Rogan show. Her name was Dr. Kelly Brogan. She says that every one of these mass shooters, Tom, is on some kind of SSRI. Do you have any knowledge about anything like that?
Tom Martin:
I don’t. Most of the mass shooters cases, we don’t have any in our office. We never came across most of the personalities and [inaudible 00:30:34] it’s kind of downward spiral of people that we just haven’t seen, so-
Craig Graves:
All right.
Chris Gazdik:
So you had an interesting theme that I wanted to get to because it was fascinating to me. Your cell phone number is the new social security number. I mean, it’s almost alarming to me when I read that on your site from a private investigative perspective. What does that even mean?
Tom Martin:
Well, I sat down one day and wrote a blog because I thought it was very, very important to let the public know that this fascination was social security numbers is really very much overplayed. I can have everybody’s social security number in our database, and we hardly ever use it because it’s old school. So I sat down, and I said, “What would I rather have? Would I rather have Chris and Craig’s social security number, or would I rather have your socials?” I mean, your social security number or your cell phone number. As supposedly a private investigator knows, I want to do backgrounds, I want to find out what’s in your data. I want to find everything about you.
Tom Martin:
So I wrote this article, and then USA Today picked it up, and it was front page on their paper. They didn’t believe me. So the reporter said, “Okay. We’re going to challenge you.” I said, “Fine.” So yeah.
Chris Gazdik:
It sounds interesting, I got to say.
Tom Martin:
All right. Well, the article’s on our website, and it was on front page. So this very astute, no-nonsense reporter, I said, “Well, I don’t even need to know your name because you called me, and I got your cell phone number. So you stand by. In three days, I’m going to send you documentation for my own system.” This is system called [inaudible 00:32:20]. It’s one of the foremost databases on the planet. I started with a floppy disc in 1981, and it’s grown since then. So you’re in it, Craig’s in it, your wives are in it and [crosstalk 00:32:30]-
Chris Gazdik:
Ooh.
Tom Martin:
Yeah, yeah. So [crosstalk 00:32:32]-
Chris Gazdik:
He’s got us, Craig.
Tom Martin:
So just behave yourself and make me look good on this show. So anyway, I took the cell phone number, put it into our system, and I gave him 150 pages on himself.
Chris Gazdik:
Wow.
Tom Martin:
I had staff FedEx it to it. The article that you’re referring to, that particular article they wrote in USA Today, you can read. To say the least, he was stunned, absolutely stunned. The reason it’s important is if you look on your business card or if you interface with people that you’re doing your podcast with or in your practices, you’re always giving your cell phone number out, right? So I could take your cell phone number, and I can get your name, I can get your address, I can get your date of birth, I can get your social security number. I can then run your name through our system, civil records, criminal records. I can do bankruptcies, notice of [inaudible 00:33:23]. I can do all your property, consumer public filings. I can do corporate records. The list goes on and on and on.
Tom Martin:
But here’s the difference. In the old days, we wanted to take the social and find out on people. With the cell phone, what I can do is I can then get into your phone. I can find out if you called Chris to set up an appointment for therapy. I can find out who you’ve been texting, who you’ve been emailing. I can see all your photos, good, bad, or indifferent. Then I can then use that information quite easily to blackmail you. So if I saw that Chris had maybe sent an inappropriate photo to somebody, I might be able then to send him a note, “Send me $500 Chris, or I’m going to have this on the internet.” So imagine the machine that you have in your hand and a bad guy getting ahold of that, what he could do with it? So yeah.
Chris Gazdik:
Wow.
Tom Martin:
Your cell phone is your new social security number. If you read the article, I think you’ll even be shocked.
Chris Gazdik:
Almost scary.
Tom Martin:
You would be, I would say a gas is sometimes the word, what’s out there in social media and what we can actually get and what we can get in the truest sense of the word that’s out there and public data.
Chris Gazdik:
Craig, what do you take from that man?
Craig Graves:
I mean, that’s interesting. I had a conversation with a friend of mine one time. If you read the book of Revelation, it says that everybody will have the mark of the beast in the end. Right? People have theorized that’s going to be a chip or it’s going to be something. She said, “No. The mark of the beast is going to be your cell phone.” So-
Chris Gazdik:
Wow.
Craig Graves:
… that’s all I’m saying. May back that up.
Chris Gazdik:
Wow. I’m thinking about taking my cell phone and going off the grid and putting it in the toilet right now.
Tom Martin:
Well, this reporter, he said, “Well, okay, that’s great, and I believe you now. I trust what you’re saying. I thank you for all you got. What’s the answer? Do you have a solution to this problem?” I said, “Sure. It’s pretty simple. Get two cell phones. Have one cell phone that you give out with just your telephone. You don’t text on it, you just answer that phone. The other one that you got all your family pictures on, then you keep that one separate. You never give out that number.”
Tom Martin:
Now, my guess is, I don’t know you guys are, well, but I spent a couple hours that Chris and Craig don’t have any problems with this regard. But you’d be shocked how many cases we get where the 15-year-old girl decides that she wants to take her top off and show her boyfriend in Chicago how mature she is. The boyfriend in Chicago she’s never met, and that turns out to be a bad guy who then sends a text to her and says, “Give me $600, or you’re going to see yourself on the internet.” That’s something we deal with all the time.
Chris Gazdik:
Right. Just to speak to that, I mean, I’ve had clients that are absolutely dealing with the issues of that. I mean, so what this little subset here, the subheadline here is the social media effect with teens and kids and such. Predatorial realities. I mean, the kids are just so used to doing Tumblr and Twitter and Snapchat and TikTok and bumblebee, and all these sites are amazing, and they’re just kind of innocently popping off, having fun on social media, and then they get a picture kind of shot out somewhere, and then they end up getting bribed and caught into a whole ring of reality where they were just kind of talking to their boyfriend, they thought. I’ve seen that in my office in the little small town that I operate out of.
Tom Martin:
If you go down the road a little bit, just corporations will hire us. They’ll say, “We want you to do a background on Mary Lou.” So we’ll do a background on her. She’s up one of 10 people for a job. So she looks on paper, she looks pretty good. But they’ll also want us to do a social media deep dive and find out-
Chris Gazdik:
Oh, boy.
Tom Martin:
We have staff that does that. Not the stuff that you see on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter. I’m talking about deep dive within the rules and regulations of all the things that we have to operate on. So this girl went down on spring break when she was 20, took her top off and was drinking tequila. Well, on its surface, it’s not the end of the world. They say some CEOs might want to have that girl in their office. She seems fun and [inaudible 00:37:54].
Tom Martin:
But the reality is that HR people will automatically [inaudible 00:37:59]. So understand what you’re doing at 17 [inaudible 00:38:04] 20 will your employment at 23 or 24 because they will automatically knock you out based on that picture.
Chris Gazdik:
I think you clipped out a little bit. You said the legality of what?
Tom Martin:
Well, most people when they go on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, you can see stuff. Well, we have the ability to see a little bit more under the rules and regulations of the Private Investigator Act and everything else. We can’t violate Facebook’s policy. But we can certainly see more of that. But most of the time we don’t even need to do “deep dive”. We can find pictures of you through your cell phone, whatever, if that’s what we are aiming to do or just in regular social media. A picture of you in an inappropriate behavior will knock you out of the box when you’re applying for a job after college.
Tom Martin:
Because if you got 10 people, all the same qualities and all the same everything from Charlotte to New York to Miami, well, how are you going to get rid of these people? Well, if you saw somebody that had inappropriate behavior, the HR department, the ones that we’re dealing with across country will knock you right out.
Chris Gazdik:
Right. Am I hearing you correctly from personal pictures on your cell phone and whatnot?
Tom Martin:
Well, most of the times, they take a picture on the cell phone, and they put it on the internet.
Chris Gazdik:
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. On the internet.
Tom Martin:
Okay. Right. So-
Chris Gazdik:
Their timeline and their face… What do you call it?
Tom Martin:
… we can’t take it off their phone because that would be evasion of their privacy. But from their phone and put it on the internet, that’s open game.
Chris Gazdik:
Fair game. Absolutely.
Tom Martin:
Yeah. Fair game. It’s totally open. Yeah. We can go after that.
Chris Gazdik:
Yeah. Wow.
Tom Martin:
It’s not really a fair, but that’s the reality of what people in the world are doing.
Chris Gazdik:
The kids don’t understand. I mean, if you’re 25 and younger-ish, I mean, Craig, I don’t know how you. I mean, I make some Facebook posts and different stuff like that. I mean, I would imagine you would have Tom a tougher time with somebody who’s 52 and doing a social media deep dive on them than somebody who’s 24. Would you say that’s a fair statement?
Tom Martin:
That is a fair statement. Yeah. Most of the time, once you reach a certain maturity level after 30 or 35, you stop posting those pictures. [crosstalk 00:40:19]-
Chris Gazdik:
You have a brain that works. Right? Let me see. Where do we want to go next? Let’s look at your vast experience because I think that your website, people will get some really help with the divorce questions and all. I was really kind of wanting to tap your brain with the dynamics of divorce that you see from a professional PI’s perspective.
Tom Martin:
Well, I think most of our divorce cases originate from our [inaudible 00:40:47]. Most people in the [inaudible 00:40:49] I don’t take any umbrage when they tell me this that most people think a private investigator has a trench coat, a fedora, and a pipe in a corner spying on them. It represents about 6% or 7% of our business. Okay? But it’s a very important part of our business for the clients. So when a man or a woman comes to us and says, “We want you to follow our mate.” We catch the people 97% of the time.
Tom Martin:
80% of our clients are women. So when the women hire us and we catch a man, the women will go to people like yourselves and tell them a third of the time, I want to get counseling, a third of the time, I want to get divorced, a third of the time, I don’t know what to do. When we catch the wife, the men come to us, and it’s 99.9% divorce.
Tom Martin:
So now, divorce is a very complex situation. There’s 155 as I said, the questions they can go. But let me tell your listeners and anybody who’s listening, the most important thing you can do in a divorce is not a PI. It’s not your forensic accountant. It’s all the things that you’ve heard about. The single most important thing you can do is the attorney that you select. That attorney will have a direct effect on the rest of your life and the changes and the decisions that you have to make.
Tom Martin:
So you can have the best PI and the greatest amount of documents and [inaudible 00:42:22] et cetera. But if your attorney is not in the top one-10th or 1% in the family law court, anywhere in the country, you’re probably going to get your butt handed to you, especially if you’re a woman. So-
Chris Gazdik:
Yeah. I’ve seen that in therapy experiences with people. I’ll tell you another thing that I’ve seen, I’m curious if you refer much are as a whole service called divorce mediation.
Tom Martin:
I’m not a big fan of it.
Chris Gazdik:
You’re not.
Tom Martin:
I’m not a big fan of divorce. In fact, I’m totally against. I-
Chris Gazdik:
Really?
Tom Martin:
… have written and talked and lectured about it because I go back to my seminary days, mediation, you can’t serve two masters and no mediation. I don’t care how much experience they got, how great they are, can serve two people in a divorce. I’ve said it a thousand times. All they’re going to do it was just like a small claims court. The mediator, talented as he or she may be, is going to give a little bit to one side and a little bit to the other side. I’m not saying they’re not fair, I’m just seeing the equity and dividing up the assets, I have never seen it be as equitable as when a judge can decide and divide up the pie.
Tom Martin:
If you’re not represented hundred percent by somebody, what’s the advantage of mediation? There’s no saving of money. All you’re doing is giving your husband or your wife an advantage.
Chris Gazdik:
Okay. So you’re saying that it’s impossible to really be sort of fair and impartial because you’re really kind of trying to take both sides of the equation and mediate it, but you’re really not able to kind of cut it down through the process.
Tom Martin:
Well, I wouldn’t say fair. If you’re of a pots and pans case, and the only asset in the marriage is the pots and the pans, and you can get the pots and he gets the pans, and the only other thing is the dog, yeah. Okay. Mediation’s great. But when you’re talking about anything where you have a house, a corporation, assets, and you’ve been married five, 10, 15 years, there’s nobody who can be fair. One of the things I know personally, I’ve been appointed by the court as what they call an PDI referee, where the two people will sit down, and we will then go through the whole list of their assets, and we tried to divide it up equally, who gets the Laker tickets? Who gets the cottage in the mountains. It’s very, very difficult. I’ve been there. It’s very difficult to be fair to both sides.
Tom Martin:
I’ve asked the mediators. Give me one advantage of having a mediator versus my clients, both sides having an attorney? They can jabber all they want, and they can jibber jabber about money, and they jibber, well, I’m fair on this, and no, you can’t. It never works out. I’ve yet to see it. I’ve done maybe 29,000, 30,000 divorce cases over the years, so-
Chris Gazdik:
Yeah, that’s fascinating. I really appreciate that because I think people are really… I’ve kind of thought, Tom, that, goodness man, the mental health breakdown potential for somebody is, I’m going to say most likely or most severe when they’re kind of going through that timeframe. It is a very delicate time. It is a very difficult time. I mean, I would venture to see Tom that when you’re kind of handing that picture, that image that you found that somebody who’s hired you to kind of find the truth out, that is when they’re gut-checked the hardest in their life.
Tom Martin:
Oh, I mean, I’ve had women in my office actually, I show them the video type. They throw up.
Chris Gazdik:
Yeah, literally.
Tom Martin:
The guys are just… The guys don’t have the DNA gene to have forgiveness. So they’re going to get divorced. Sometimes a guy will walk in or off say, “I’m going to try to save the marriage for the kids,” and we go, “What?” It’s not going to last. You can go all the therapy you want. At the end of the day, you’re going to get a divorce, and they do. Then like most PIs and… It sounds a little self-serving. Most PIs say, “Okay, we’re done. I found you the evidence. Now, we’re done.” But when you have kids and all this other trauma, especially during a fair, it might affect four adults and six kids.
Chris Gazdik:
Right?
Tom Martin:
Yeah. The single most important thing, as I said, is to get that attorney. Just an example in Orange County, where we’re based, there’s 2,000 family law attorneys. Now, how many do you think we actually recommend? In fact, we only recommend a small amount. In fact, if you don’t have one of 16 attorneys that we recommend in Orange County, we won’t take your money. Okay? We could probably use extra cases, but we’re not going to take your money because we don’t take our work product and give it to a knucklehead attorney who doesn’t know what to do with it, doesn’t know what to do with the assets searches or the backgrounds with the information that we’ve found.
Tom Martin:
So it’s not only from archer critical to get an attorney, but it’s really critical to get one that’s in the top 1%. You can find a lot of that guidance in that book that’s online for free, Investigator Confidential, which your listeners can go to and [inaudible 00:47:35] some helpful tips on how to pick the attorney.
Chris Gazdik:
Yeah. I think people are really vulnerable at that point. That’s why wanted spend a little bit of extra time on the divorce component because people are really confused. I mean, how do I go about through this? How do I begin the process? I really appreciate your, what is it, 190,007 questions to ask because people are really like, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to start. I don’t know where to turn. I don’t know what’s my first step.” You throw into that on the topic of domestic violence, which we’ve covered on this show. We’ve got a VictoryLife House, a lady who shared her story of domestic violence. That’s a whole nother level of terror in, how do I start this? So that’s an awesome resource. Yeah.
Tom Martin:
Well, I can tell you what not to do, which most people do, be it in your area or anywhere in the United States. They call up their best friend. “Do you know any good divorce attorneys?” Or they call up Uncle Willie. “Do you know any good divorce attorneys?” It’s really pretty simple. The best tip I can give you is go down to the family law center in your area and talk to the [inaudible 00:48:45] the marshals or the law enforcement people there. Go to the clerks of the court or go to the administrators in the actual court rooms and say, “If you were getting a divorce, who would you pick? Who are the heavy hitters here?” Or find a good private investigator in the area who’s done these cases and say, “Hey, who do you not want to see with your wife in divorce court?”
Tom Martin:
Who they named, that’s the person you want to get. Maybe get two or three [inaudible 00:49:11]. Don’t take advice from your cousin or your aunt or your friend or the Starbucks guy, please.
Chris Gazdik:
Yeah, it’s-
Tom Martin:
I mean, it’s life-changing. I mean it’s a-
Chris Gazdik:
It really is. It really is. So you clicked out again. You said get two or three references and kind of get good information that way.
Tom Martin:
Well, I think if you go-
Craig Graves:
Some people who [crosstalk 00:49:36]-
Tom Martin:
Exactly. What you want to do is if you hear the same name, if you keep coming up with Craig Graves, Craig Graves, Craig Graves keeps coming up, you might want to talk to Craig about being the divorce attorney. Those people in the courthouses, they will love to share that information with you.
Chris Gazdik:
What got you into private investigation kind of in the first place? Because when we cover these different topics, cults, and missing persons and finding people and investigating for proceedings of divorce and whatnot, what’s your real interest in I think helping people through those times?
Tom Martin:
Well, if you flashback to 1981 when I was on the fast track to be come in some circles, the number two guy in the DEA, which would be called the deputy [inaudible 00:50:18] it was a pretty devastating time. I sat around after I got the retirement papers. It was agreed by my doctors in the DEA that I had to retire. So I sat around for a couple of weeks feeling sorry for myself until my wife and kids decided that they wanted to eat, go to school, and buy clothes. So I said, “Okay.”
Tom Martin:
Interesting, the government, a lot of people don’t know this, has to retrain you so that you make the same amount of money. You can either become a therapist, you can become an airline pilot, you can become whatever. So what does Tom Martin do? I mean, I don’t have much talent other than being an investigator. So I told the government, “If you let me become a private investigator, I will sign a waiver that you don’t have to. If I fail, don’t worry about it.” That ended up being a pretty big motivational thing to make sure my business succeeded because I had nothing to fall back on.
Chris Gazdik:
Sure.
Tom Martin:
So what do I do? I mean, they wanted me to go back my doctorate and whatever, and they wanted me to go to become a lawyer. They had all these things and I go, “No. I just want to be an investigator and do what I know best.” So when I started at ’81, there were very few private investigators, maybe a thousand. Today, in 2020 there’s 100,000 private investigators in the country. So I had no real role. I didn’t have a business plan, anything. But if you just hang in there and know that eventually you’re going to get a case, it was the best choice I ever made.
Tom Martin:
I still have fire daily, and every day [inaudible 00:51:55]. I mean, I didn’t know when you get up in the morning, whether you’re going to go to court, whether you’re going to be on a podcast, whether you’re going to be on a surveillance [inaudible 00:52:04] or still in time and product and those [inaudible 00:52:09]. It’s a great career. It’s a fantastic career.
Chris Gazdik:
Craig, Mike zipped out again just a little bit, but I think he told us he has ADD. Is that what you heard him say?
Tom Martin:
[inaudible 00:52:18] that. Make sure you get that.
Chris Gazdik:
Right. We’ll highlight that with, “This is an ADD show. I missed the boat. What did I do? I screwed up.”
Tom Martin:
Make sure you put it up to them in big letters so they [inaudible 00:52:29].
Chris Gazdik:
Right.
Tom Martin:
Awesome.
Craig Graves:
Hey Tom, we talked about retirement one time on the show. It’s fairly a new concept in the grand scheme of history. You seem to love what you do, man. Do you ever see yourself retiring from this?
Tom Martin:
I really don’t. As I’ve often told people, I don’t play golf very well. My wife, certainly after 50 years of marriage or there will be an overdose [inaudible 00:52:51] at home. I’m very blessed. I still get the pick of whatever cases I want. I want to do a murder case, I do. If I want to do a corporate case, I do. If I want to do a civil case, I do. It’s still gratifying. I mean, I still like to win in an art business, it’s never gray. You either find the assets or you don’t. You either catch the guy cheating or you don’t. You either get the guy off the court or you don’t.
Tom Martin:
So most of the private investigators, there’s some great investigators in the country, but they have no business sense. That’s why they fail. There’s so many investigators that I couldn’t shine their shoes. But unfortunately, they don’t know how to run a business. That’s unfortunate. So of the a hundred thousand, I’m not quite sure how many are making a living out of it. But every day is different. Every day is exciting, and you can pick and choose what you want to do. That’s a blessing.
Craig Graves:
Awesome.
Chris Gazdik:
What was one of your scariest moments
Tom Martin:
As a PI?
Chris Gazdik:
Yeah. Well, no. Actually, as a PI, DEA, whatever.
Tom Martin:
I was actually taken hostage as the DEA undercover agent, and I was an undercover buying cocaine up in Malibu, and I was taken hostage for four hours.
Craig Graves:
Wow.
Tom Martin:
Yeah. Yeah, that was a wow for sure. They didn’t teach me what to do in the school that I went to prior to beginning sworn in as an agent.
Craig Graves:
No [inaudible 00:54:18].
Tom Martin:
Yeah. The guy who took me hostage, this is a little embarrassing, maybe you’ll cut this out, he [inaudible 00:54:25] wheelchair.
Chris Gazdik:
He was on a wheelchair.
Tom Martin:
Yeah. I just saw when I had to talk to inspection about it. Okay. “So a guy took you hostage in a wheelchair?” I go, “Oh my God.” Well, he had a couple [inaudible 00:54:37] and he also had a Doberman there. I actually became friends with the Doberman after about an hour because they allowed me to go get a glass of water. When I got the water out of the faucet, I looked in the refrigerator and just like it had fallen for manna from heaven, it was Oscar Mayer Bologna pack. So I fed that to that Doberman, and we became buddies.
Craig Graves:
What were the circumstance? Did they realize you were an agent, Tom? Or did that take you [crosstalk 00:55:04]-
Tom Martin:
Yeah. I mean, that’s the common thread that nobody likes to admit it. I didn’t have a nice spirit like you have. My beard, although it’s red, it’s very scraggly. My hair was long. I mean, I look like a puke. I mean, let’s admit what I was at. Maybe I didn’t have the best gift to gab. The ironic part is why I was there for so long is the surveillance. There was like 10 other agents outside. Right? The wire that I had on apparently didn’t work. But there were also four girls outside, four girls naked by the pool.
Tom Martin:
So I’ve always told my fellow comrades that… “So you guys were watching the girls and not worrying about me too much,” is what I think happened here.
Chris Gazdik:
You’re tapping your chest like, “What? Hey, hey.” Wow.
Tom Martin:
So finally, that happened to pay off because the guy said, “Well you can’t be a narc.” I think he wanted me to say, “You’re too stupid to be a narc and, nobody’s come to [inaudible 00:56:00].” So he [inaudible 00:56:01] the cocaine.
Craig Graves:
Wow.
Tom Martin:
Yeah. They ended up getting the cocaine and walking out of there, and they ended up coming in and arrested him. So-
Craig Graves:
Wow.
Tom Martin:
But those four hours were like 40 days. I can tell you that.
Craig Graves:
I’m sure. I’m sure.
Chris Gazdik:
I can’t imagine. I can’t imagine. Well, listen, Craig, where are we at? What are you thinking in here? We need to texting in again here and get out of here. What’s going on in Craig Graves’ mind?
Craig Graves:
We covered a lot of topics. I don’t have anything specific. I could talk with Tom all day, I think, if we had time.
Chris Gazdik:
All right. We didn’t get to get to the opioid epidemic. We didn’t get to get to the coronavirus epidemic. We didn’t get to get to the drug enforcement and the borders. Man, we had a lot of topics, Tom.
Tom Martin:
Well, maybe another time if we’re [inaudible 00:56:42] back, I’d love to do do it.
Chris Gazdik:
Absolutely. That’d be awesome.
Craig Graves:
Hey, love to have you back. It’d be awesome.
Chris Gazdik:
What would you say that throughout your travels and time with government and world travel and in way of summing this up, I kind of prefaced part one, or did I say it today, this episode, I’m sure, greed is the root of all evils. How would you summarize dealing with people and dealing with that issue to get into a better place so that you manage that greed internally and change your behavior, whether it’s divorcing or whether it’s having affairs or… In your investigative travels, how can we do a better job with that?
Tom Martin:
Well, that’s a good question. I went to 60 foreign countries as an agent, then I’ve done another 60. So we’re up to about 120-plus countries. One thing, no matter where I’ve gone on the planet, I always come home. It sounds great to travel around and do all that sort of thing. I think for me, what I would tell the listeners is, is that when you travel, keep in mind, not everybody is going to be as gracious or benevolent as you want them to be. A lot of people in a lot of countries, and I mean, some not so nice countries, their whole life revolves around getting that money out of you, whether it be through the airlines, through the travel, through, through the food that you’re going to buy, whenever, there’s so many people that have a game.
Tom Martin:
I don’t think I’m jaded about it because it happens almost everywhere in every country. So just be a little more street smart. Be protective of yourself and your belongings. Because I’ve had it happen to me. They will try to rip you off in a lot of places, not that they don’t do it here in the US. But I think, and not to paint a picture terrible of the other countries, but they all got some kind of game, and they don’t say money’s the root of all evil for nothing. So just be damn careful.
Chris Gazdik:
Absolutely. Well, Craig, do you have anything to wrap up on, and I’m going to door our hands or distance clap.
Craig Graves:
No, I just appreciate Tom. Tom, it’s been two great conversations. Man, I hope there’s a third. I do, at some point.
Tom Martin:
Thanks, Craig.
Chris Gazdik:
So when people were doing personal sharing, Tom, I kind of started a little bit of a tradition of… A lot of times we’re sitting at the table, and I like to do a high five with them because it is hard to share sometimes these different things and the situations that you’re in and the emotional experience you have. So we’re going to do a high five across the entire nation, if you will. In three seconds, we’re going to kind of clap signifying a high five. Because this is really appreciative. I think that the point of reason why we do the show is to really help people and to be… and I believe in being genuine and being direct with people in our experiences, really help people with that. So I just very much appreciate you being willing to do that with our audience.
Tom Martin:
Well, I appreciate all the good stuff you get out there. I think it’s great, especially about the human trafficking we did in the first show. It’s going to be great.
Chris Gazdik:
So, on the count of three, we’re going to clap, three, two, one.
Tom Martin:
Oh, clap. See, I worked for the government. You got to explain it a little better than that. There we go
Chris Gazdik:
All right, man.
Tom Martin:
All right. Continuous.
Chris Gazdik:
Have a great week.
Tom Martin:
Thank you. Stay safe and healthy, you guys.
Chris Gazdik:
All right.
Craig Graves:
Thanks, Tom. Talk to you soon.
Tom Martin:
Bye.
Chris Gazdik:
Craig, take us out of here, and we’re going to go get something to dinner.
Craig Graves:
Sounds good. You can find out more about our show on throughatherapistseyes.com. We got an entry for every show. You can find this on just about every podcast platform, or you can listen right there on the website.
Chris Gazdik:
All right. Stay safe, and we’ll see you guys next week.
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