Introducing the Realtor Safety and Self-Defence Podcast

A harrowing real-life incident shattered Rob and Beth's confidence. It also fueled their relentless quest to craft the ultimate form of self-defence. Rob and Beth Andress are now the owners of Street Safe Self Defence and launching their new podcast.

They’ve developed programs specific to real estate agents to help them stay safe. Central to their programs is a deeper understanding of violence, predatory behaviour, rear responses, and the cultivation of a resilient mindset.

If you work in real estate, this podcast has been designed to help you stay safe.

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Our website https://streetsafeselfdefence.com/
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613-340-8002 

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Transcript

Rob Andress (00:00):

And I think one of the biggest things that we have been able to do with the real estate professional that we've been working with is really bring an understanding into the misconceptions of their ability on dealing with violence. I want to welcome everybody to realtor Safety and self-defence with Rob and Beth. This is our new podcast and we really hope that you're going to take the time to jump on and have a listen to what our message is. Beth, say hi to everybody and why don't you give everyone a little bit of an introduction to you and then I'm going to follow up afterwards. I think it's important that people know who we are.

Beth Andress (00:53):

Well, I'm really happy to be here doing this podcast with you today. Rob, we have worked really hard to get this message out and I think this podcast is going to be great for everybody. So many of you probably already know me. My name is Beth. I work with Rob delivering our workshops, the courses that we do for realtor safety. I also have a full-time career in law enforcement. I am certified with our street safe self-defence curriculum. I do some situational awareness training with our corporate clients and I, I'm really working towards learning a little bit more right now on human trafficking and how trauma affects us and where violence develops out of trauma. So we're working hard to bring some really good stuff to you, but today we're going to just introduce you to who we are and what we have to offer for you.

Rob Andress (01:53):

Yeah, fantastic. Thank you. And I want to let our listeners know a little bit about who I am. I been a real estate broker for 38 years and what, when I say that I can't, I'm getting older than dirt. I can't even believe I've been in this industry that long. But several years ago I come from a real large martial arts background in training in jujitsu and kickboxing and all of that kind of really cool stuff. And Beth used to do a lot of training with me. I hold a designation as a first degree black belt a show. Dan and I have an honorary second degree black belt. And Beth used to do a lot of training with me and something happened to one of us and we had a really bad experience with a person. And it was on that day that we realized that martial arts training, what isn't for everybody, and a lot of it can fail you at the moment when you need to rely on it most.

(02:59):

And that set us off on a quest to find out what human responses to fear, why people have reaction, the high adrenaline dumping the carbohydrates, the cortisol burning, all of those things that affect us and how we respond to violence. And it's, it set us on a path. And today I've really kind of turned away a little bit from my martial arts training and have really focused on violence prevention and reality self-defence. I hold a designation in pure and applied debilitation tactics. I'm also an advanced practitioner in situational awareness with a company called the Akuri Group. And I've done a lot of work with internationally renowned experts in the psychology of violence and how it affects people and the reality behind physical self-defence and the tactics that people really need to use.

Beth Andress (04:03):

And you know what? I think it's really important, Rob, just to say right in the beginning that physical self-defence is such a very limited part of what we teach and what self-defence actually is. And we really hope that people that are thinking they're going to go out and take a three hour kickboxing or karate class and be able to defend themself against a violent predator, it just does not work that way. So that's one of the things that we hope that people really are able to pick up on and learn from us is that you can't learn physical self-defence techniques that will work against somebody bigger and stronger and faster and more determined than you can't learn that stuff in a Saturday afternoon course.

Rob Andress (04:55):

Well, and the reality of it is, Beth, today we know that you can't learn that either after 7, 8, 9, 10 years of practicing intensive training within martial arts. So we understand that as well. And part of what we bring to our clients as well within the real estate industry, well within all the training we do is we have a thorough understanding of trauma-informed practices. And we, trauma actually comes from the root of it. And we do a lot of work as well within the foundation of threat assessments. But I think of all the training, the one that's really closest to our heart is working with the real estate professional.

Beth Andress (05:45):

Absolutely.

Rob Andress (05:46):

And there's a reason for that. And over the last several years with working with professional boards and associations and offices right across our country, what Beth, the one thing that we found is that the industry's understanding of violence within its own industry is skewed. There's a huge disconnect in what the leaders within the industries, the major associations understand what violence is, how the attacks happen, how the luring and the targeting works, and to make it even sadder. The members themselves don't understand it because there's no education that's provided to them on being able to understand or identify the violence that they face in their work and how to truly and properly deal with that violence.

(06:49):

And I think that where maybe some of it is to do, I don't want to say it's with ego, but I think some of it is to do with the lack of knowledge, and I'm going to use the word ignorance in dealing with what true violence is. And we oftentimes see in the movies, we use jokes sometimes when we're doing live presentations with board and associations about people seeing John Wick and Jason Bourne and all that cool shit. And they think that they can pull that stuff off when they're facing an individual, but they don't take a look in an understanding and at the type of violence that the real estate professional faces in their job. And I think one of the biggest things that we have been able to do with the real estate professional that we've been working with is really bring an understanding into the misconceptions of their ability on dealing with violence.

Beth Andress (07:53):

For sure. And a big part of that also is acknowledging that those risks are there and and I know, and what we've learned is that real estate professionals face far more on the job risks than any other business professionals.

Rob Andress (08:12):

From what we've been able to determine is today that the number of female professionals that have faced a fearful experience in their job performance is hovering somewhere around 50 to 52% right across the country and with male realtors. And oftentimes what the mail doesn't believe they're at risk. And I know that that's not true. I mean, the last session training that we did in Winnipeg, we had two male realtors come up to us and disclose about attacks that they faced. One was at the hands a tenant and the other was a planned resource attack when the realtor left showing he was jumped by three men on the way to his car and he was robbed. So men within our industry as well are at risk, but they don't want to acknowledge the fact that it's there or they take the belief that I can handle or I can tear down whatever stands in front of me and I don't need training and trainings only for women and all of that kind of stuff. And that's the farthest thing from the truth. And within what we've been able to determine within the industry is about 18% of males have had a fearful experience while completing their job. And those numbers are crazy.

Beth Andress (09:43):

And that number for males, Rob, seems to be growing for us as we gather our statistics even just in the last eight months or so. And I think part of that is because people and everybody is more willing to acknowledge that these things are happening. And the more we identify the way these attacks happen with men, the more men we get that stand up and say, yes, that did happen to me. And the more people that do that, the more men we hear from, the more we're able to move forward and identify what we need to know to be able to prevent these. For sure.

Rob Andress (10:26):

Well, what I think you just said carries a tremendous amount of weight because we've noticed as well seven years ago when we first started our education training, and the first board that we went to was RAP and the Real Estate Association in Hamilton, Burlington. And there was not a male in the group. And we probably went two years on training with associations within Ontario without meeting our first man. And I'm so happy when I see male realtors show up for violence prevention training because they are at risk. They really are. And I could spend the next two hours talking about incidences that male realtors have faced in the performance of their job. I remember the very first one that I met was in Edmonton when we were doing training association for Ray. And I had a male come up to me and tell me that he had a knife pulled on him when he was doing a listing property workup.

(11:35):

And this is the farthest thing that he ever expected. And I asked him, I said to him, how did you deal with that? And he dealt with it the best way he could and he came out and everything was good and he didn't get hurt, but this is what he said. He said, I disappeared on myself. I just stood there and looked and I didn't move and I didn't want to talk. And I remember him saying, I don't even know if I was breathing. And he said, then the guy just took the knife away from my stomach and went on. There was nothing even happened. And those kind of incidences, I mean, we hear about them, we hear about men being beaten up. We've heard about male realtors being hit with baseball bats. We've heard about male realtors being stabbed in the abdomen and having their luxury sports vehicle taken on them.

(12:28):

So men, you're at risk. And of all the members that we met, one of the things that we ask when we go into boards and associations is we ask how many people that are joining us today have had a fearful experience completing their job? And the environment that we create when we're doing training is a safe environment, like truly safe it, it's surprising the things that start being shared when professionals are put in an environment where they know they're not going to be judged or they're not going to be talked about. It's really interesting what comes up. And one of the things that we have also found is that of all the realtors that we have met, the professionals that we've trained, and Beth and I were just talking about this the other day, we think we're over 4,000 now.

(13:23):

And about 6% of them have faced their worst nightmare. And what an unfortunate thing, because the majority of these situations had proper training and education been provided, may not have happened. And I know a good majority of them certainly would not have happened, had a true understanding of what social violence is and the impact that social violence has with the real estate professional and them dealing with people on a day-to-day basis. Well, I don't even want to say which is dealing with people but dealing amongst themselves. Because we've also heard of realtors beating up other realtors, and these are things that are not made public and they're things that our industry doesn't talk about. And that's one of the things that Beth and I want to bring out is the reality of what the real estate professional faces in their industry.

Beth Andress (14:27):

And I think that over the last couple of years, and I, I'm going to go back and blame it on, but I think over the last couple of years people have been more vocal about how they feel about realtors and in general, the consensus. It isn't getting any better. Is it Rob the way people

Rob Andress (14:50):

No, no,

Beth Andress (14:51):

No, no, not at all. And I think it stems from two things. Number one, we became a society that kind of stayed behind our keyboards and worked from home and didn't socialize and didn't go out and interact with people often enough for a long time during Covid when we had those restrictions on. So some of our social graces were kind of left in the dust, I'm going to say. But the other thing is we here in Ontario, we had a huge boom in housing and the prices went up and the supply went down and people were really clamoring to get the house that they wanted and offers were going in over asking, and the competition was high. And if buyers didn't get their house that they wanted, they were blaming their realtor and social media comments and news articles and ads and things like that.

(15:48):

The public really did not hesitate to blame the whole entire housing market issue on realtors. And we heard from so many that were getting nasty messages in their comments, in their dms on social media, all that kind of stuff. And it just goes to show you that our society is really changing and knowing how to manage conflict and how to manage social violence and how to deal with those situations before they escalate into physical confrontations is a really important skill that anybody that works with the public needs to know, but especially realtors who deal with the two things that cause the most anxiety for people in what they manage and what they deal with in their daily lives. Realtors are dealing with sometimes people's largest financial investment and they're also dealing with people's relationships. And when I say that, what I mean is when you go to meet someone to sell their home, or when you're taking a buyer out to view a home, you may not know the real reason behind the sale of that home. Are both parties wanting to sell the home? Is it because of a marital breakdown and there's some discord into the way that's going to move forward? You just don't know what you're stepping into. But what you have to understand that you are stepping into relationships and huge financial investments and that causes people anxiety no matter who they are. So learning how to manage that bonus

Rob Andress (17:31):

Is the largest cause. Absolutely. It's the largest cause of anxiety in the Canadian populace is money and relationships

Beth Andress (17:40):

And those kind of interactions, if you don't understand and pick up on some of the signals you're being given, you know, can walk into a very difficult situation. For sure.

Rob Andress (17:53):

Yeah. Really quick. So what I just want to quickly, if you're good Beth, is just let's pop through some of the quick education programs that we offer because going to kind of wrap up on the end of our first podcast today, but we got some amazing stuff coming up. So I really hope everybody kind of starts jumping on and listening to this. But the one thing that I want to talk about is our live program know Thy Enemy, prospector Predator. And this is a live training. It's a five hour training program. And I think a mistake a lot of boards advertise this as is self-defence. And this is not just self-defence violence prevention. And we do do some tacticals as well within the program, but the biggest part of this program is really to educate realtors on how to identify the violence they face and how to deal with them. And we have some awesome online training as well, Prett attack indicator. Oh,

Beth Andress (18:54):

Sure. And I got to say, Rob, before we leave that this five hour workshop that we do, the live workshop, there is so much packed into that session about things that seem every day in the realtor's job that they understand a little bit differently by the time we're finished. We talk about open house safety, we talk about targeting and luring, we talk about managing your space and all kinds of different, so even some desensitization tactics that people who are not true prospects will use. So that five hour course, I know it's difficult sometimes for people to give up their day and join us for that length of time, but it it's value packed and it is the most important education course that you can sign up for during your career as a realtor. It's all about you and how you can do your job safer every single day. And we love doing that course

Rob Andress (20:02):

And we always get the same response. This program should be mandatory for all realtors to take it. It's a moving and very empowering program, very empowering.

Beth Andress (20:12):

The feedback is amazing. Yeah,

Rob Andress (20:14):

Pre attack indicators and transparency effect, these are all online web training, our space management program. It's a program that Beth and I developed that will actually change the way that you do your job and put you into 100% control of the enclosed environments that you work in. What an interesting thought, the enclosed environment you work in.

Beth Andress (20:37):

Exactly. And if you learn how to control your space and control the people that are in your space, you're going to increase your safety tenfold.

Rob Andress (20:47):

Absolutely. Another great program that we have is social and anti-social violence, and it's really important for the professional to understand those two types of violence and social media and those you don't want to meet. We understand today that the majority of targeting that happened as that with the professional today is occurring online. And this is why we've developed this program to really educate you on ways of reducing your risks of being targeted and the real estate professionally. They get contacts and messages from these people and they oftentimes think they're just creeps and they blow it off. And here's a stunner for you. 70% of all stalking cases will result in the victim meeting the predator physically. So it's huge. And it's another misunderstanding. We do some close quarter combative work online as well. And we do a really, really awesome program called non-conventional tool training, which is non-conventional weapons, which is another specialty that I've done some studying in as well.

(22:04):

And we've got a couple of other programs that are just absolutely amazing and we've had a lot of boards and associations in Ontario jumping on and providing those training to their members. But one thing that I think that's really important for us to share again, is those numbers. Because realtors believe or they take the safety approach that it is never going to happen to me. And Beth and I are here to tell you that 6% of the active members in our country, it has happened to them. And although you might think that 6% isn't a large number, you multiply that out by the 140 or 150,000 active real estate professionals in this country. And our industry is a problem.

Beth Andress (22:57):

And we hear from people who have experienced those issues that they really wish they had to taken the time prior to that and invested in a little bit of learning on what to expect and maybe what the risks that they were facing are we, we've met real estate agents that have been threatened and robbed and physically or sexually assaulted, and they're just doing their job. They're just completing the everyday ordinary requirements of their job. And we know Rob, that the trauma and the effect of experiencing those types of incidents are long lasting. So investing the few hours of your time to learn how to make a harder target, to learn some physical skills to identify and possibly counter an attack, the return is priceless. It really is something that everybody deserved and it's exciting to be able to maybe reach some people that we haven't met already or that we haven't spoken with and touch on each of these topics as we roll through these podcast episodes.

Rob Andress (24:09):

Yeah, absolutely. Hey, and I think with that, what I just kind of want to leave our listeners with one thing, and this is really specific to the real estate professional, you see them as clients. I want you to remember this and don't forget it. And they're strangers to you. They are giving you a picture of who they want you to see. You do not know these people intimately. You do not know their past history. You do not know who they are. They're strangers. And please don't ever forget that. You know what, in closing, just want to let you know we train and educate differently than martial arts or a lot of impact training or other self-defence instructors. So take a look at our website, www doreet safe self-defence dot com. That's Canadian defence with a C. And hey, I hope we catch you all on our next podcast. And I don't know you want to say anything in closing, Beth, because like this, I hope this went well. I think it was pretty cool. I

Beth Andress (25:14):

Just want to let everybody know how excited I am to be here and everything that we're going to talk about over the next few episodes that we do is super important stuff and you'll learn something every time. So I'll see you again soon.

Rob Andress (25:33):

I want to thank everyone for listening, and if you could please just leave us a rating and maybe even share our podcast with one friend, that would be amazing. Thank you.