I have been thinking a lot about an old high school friend of mine who was radicalized. His name was Ahmad Abu Samra. You can Google him and find his story. I knew Ahmad long before his trajectory took a very different path. We met when we were both in High School. We attended the same Mosque. We played sports. We did everything together. Then, somewhere between junior and senior year of high school, something changed. He began to spew radical ideologies. He dressed in traditional Islamic wear. Grew a beard. I knew someone or an organization got to him at the Mosque. I never liked attending this Mosque for that very reason. There were radicals who infiltrated the Mosque. Many discussions of radicalization focus on ideology first — slogans, manifestos, or the extremist content that people consume. What too often gets overlooked is how behavioral shifts are the earliest indicators — long before someone can be labeled “radicalized.” In Ahmad’s case, to those close to him, the shift wasn’t defined by a sudden sermon or a manifesto he shared online. It was a series of seemingly small yet consistent social behaviors — withdrawal from long-standing relationships, increasing emotional rigidity toward grievances, and an evolving sense of identity threat in response to global events that had little real impact on his everyday life. By the time his association with violent networks escalated — eventually leading him overseas and into organizational structures tied with ISIS propaganda and publication efforts — those who knew him had already seen the behavioral drift for years. This pattern is not unique. In my experience, whether in fieldwork or in reviewing cases of Western foreign fighters, the sequence matters: 🔹 Early behavior change (social isolation, grievance escalation) 🔹 Cognitive framing around perceived injustices 🔹 Affiliation with like-minded peers 🔹 Movement toward operational engagement. Too often, analysts and policymakers react at the ideological stage — after someone is already firmly embedded in extremist networks. If we want effective prevention, we must see the behavioral signals that precede that stage.

I’ve seen this loop more times than I can count. ➡️ Not on a whiteboard. ➡️ Not in a classroom. But in living rooms at 2 a.m., on the side of the road, in kitchens turned into crime scenes, and in the aftermath of choices people refuse to own. This image captures something policing teaches you very quickly: Every situation gives you two paths. 🔁 One is the Accountability Loop. 🔁 The other is the Victim Loop. In policing, we respond to the situation—the call for service. What happens next is rarely about lack of options. It’s about intention. I’ve stood across from people who: • ignored every warning • denied obvious facts • blamed everyone but themselves • rationalized harmful behavior • resisted help • hid behind excuses Not because they couldn’t choose differently—but because accountability is uncomfortable. ▪️The victim loop is seductive. ▪️It protects the ego. ▪️It removes responsibility. ▪️It gives people someone else to blame: the system, their upbringing, their partner, the economy, the police, society. And the longer someone stays in that loop, the harder it becomes to break free. The accountability loop is harder—but it’s the only one that leads anywhere worth going. It requires: • recognizing reality • owning your role • making a choice • taking action • learning from failure • self-examination • forgiveness (of self and others) I’ve watched people change their lives when they step into that loop. I’ve also watched people burn every bridge available because they refused to. This isn’t just policing. ‼️It’s leadership. ‼️It’s parenting. ‼️It’s relationships. ‼️It’s life. And if we’re honest, this image is also a mirror for society right now. We increasingly reward excuses, elevate victimhood, and treat accountability as cruelty instead of growth. We explain behavior away instead of confronting it. We externalize everything—then wonder why nothing changes. Policing doesn’t create this reality. It just encounters it earlier and more often than most.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about war stories—mine and everyone else’s. I don’t hate them. I never have. They matter. They come from real places, real cost, real consequence. When shared with purpose, they teach restraint, humility, and respect for what violence actually takes from a human being. But I’ve also seen how easily they can turn into a loop. There was a time when I didn’t know who I was without my stories. They became proof. Credibility. Armor. I told myself I was honoring the past, but if I’m honest, I was often reliving it. Re-activating it. Feeding something inside me that didn’t want to be quiet. That’s not strength. That’s a lack of self-awareness. I’ve sat through countless trainings as a cop where most of the day was war stories. Some from overseas. Some from the street. Some from decades ago. Stories can be powerful—but when they’re self-serving, when they reinforce identity instead of building capacity, they miss the point. Experience without reflection is just memory. Self-awareness changes the question. Not what happened to me? But how am I relating to it now? I’ve learned that sometimes we don’t return to these stories because they still need to be told—we return to them because our nervous system recognizes the feeling. The certainty. The activation. The version of ourselves that once knew exactly who it was. But growth asks something different. It asks us to carry the past without becoming it. To remember without reliving. To teach without performing. The strongest people I know aren’t the loudest storytellers. They’re the ones who can sit quietly with their past without needing to explain it. They know who they are now. They’re not negotiating with who they were. I don’t want fewer stories. I want more conscious ones. Stories that serve purpose, not ego. Stories that point forward, not backward. Stories that end in responsibility, not applause. The past is a teacher. It was never meant to be a cage.

This is more of a general discussion post. I was asked this question a while back and it forced me to really look internally and my answer was a simple I am who I am regardless of the story. I’m curious, what would your answers be?

If you transform your mindset—and your life—from “What can I get?” to “What can I give?”, something fundamental shifts. When your focus is on taking, every interaction becomes transactional. Every role becomes a position of leverage. Every setback feels personal. But when you shift toward giving— Giving effort when no one is watching. Giving clarity when others are overwhelmed. Giving steadiness when chaos is loud. You stop chasing outcomes and start shaping environments. Giving doesn’t mean weakness. It means responsibility. It means carrying weight so others can move forward. And here’s the paradox most people miss: When you commit to giving—your time, your discipline, your presence—you don’t lose anything. You gain purpose, influence, and a legacy that outlasts the moment. The strongest leaders I’ve known weren’t focused on being served. They were focused on serving well. That mindset changes everything.