The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

by Gavin de Becker

Americans worship logic, even when it’s wrong, and deny intuition, even when it’s right.

Forced teaming is an effective way to establish premature trust because a we’re-in-the-same-boat attitude is hard to rebuff without feeling rude. Sharing a predicament, like being stuck in a stalled elevator or arriving simultaneously at a just-closed store will understandably move people around social boundaries. But forced teaming is not about coincidence; it is intentional and directed, and it is one of the most sophisticated manipulations.

Typecasting always involves a slight insult, and usually one that is easy to refute. But since it is the response itself that the typecaster seeks, the defense is silence, acting as if the words weren’t even spoken.

The unsolicited promise is one of the most reliable signals because it is nearly always of questionable motive. Promises are used to convince us of an intention, but they are not guarantees.

the promise holds up a mirror in which you get a second chance to see your own intuitive signal; the promise is the image and the reflection of your doubt.

“No” is a word that must never be negotiated,

The worst response when someone fails to accept “no” is to give ever-weakening refusals and then give in. Another common response that serves the criminal is to negotiate (“I really appreciate your offer, but let me try to do it on my own first”). Negotiations are about possibilities, and providing access to someone who makes you apprehensive is not a possibility you want to keep on the agenda. I encourage people to remember that “no” is a complete sentence.

the nicest guy, the guy with no self-serving agenda whatsoever, the one who wants nothing from you, won’t approach you at all.

Her intuition asked and answered several questions in order to complete that prediction. It evaluated favorable and unfavorable aspects of his behavior. Since we are more familiar with favorable behaviors, if you list them and then simply note their opposites, you will be predicting dangerousness. We call this the “rule of opposites,” and it is a powerful predictive tool.

Michelangelo when asked how he created his famous statue of David. He said “it is easy—you just chip away the stone that doesn’t look like David.”

process of comparing reliability, importance, cost, and effectiveness (which my office calls the RICE evaluation) is how people go about making many daily decisions.

Since victims of threats—and not threateners—decide how valuable a threat will be, the way you react will set the price tag.

If you can convince an extortionist that the harm he threatens does not worry you, you have at a minimum improved your negotiating position. In many cases, you may actually neutralize the whole matter.

ask victims to repeat “I don’t understand what you’re getting at” until the extortionist states it clearly. Many extortionists can’t do it and they either stumble around the issue or abandon their bad idea altogether. Making him explicitly state the extortion also helps clarify whether he is motivated

Those who say the shabby words explicitly right from the start are more likely to carry out the threatened act than those who stumble

When any type of threat includes indirect or veiled references to things they might do, such as “You’ll be sorry,” or “Don’t mess with me,” it is best to ask directly, “What do you mean by that?” Ask exactly what the person is threatening to do.

Direct threats are not a reliable pre-incident indicator for assassination in America, as demonstrated by the fact that not one successful public-figure attacker in the history of the media age directly threatened his victim first.

threats spoken to people other than the victim are not as likely to be motivated by a desire to scare the victim. Though they too are rarely acted upon, threats delivered to second parties should always be reported to law enforcement.

People who send threats anonymously are far less likely to pursue an encounter than those who sign their names.

There is a rule we call “engage and enrage.” The more attachment you have—whether favorable or unfavorable—the more this will escalate.

This quote has stuck with me since I read it.

“In the face of one’s victim, one sees oneself.”

“How much more grievous are the consequences of our anger than the acts which arouse it.”

The Scriptwriter is the type of person who asks you a question, answers it himself, then walks away angry at what you said. In this regard, he writes the script for his interaction with co-workers and management.

praise for performance—correction for errors.

It is analogous to hooking someone up to life-support systems when he has no quality of life and no chance for survival. Though some may believe this extends the process of life, it actually extends the process of death.

Other issues may come up, but do not negotiate, no matter how much he wants to. This is not a discussion of how to improve things, correct things, change the past, find blame, or start over. Revisiting the issues and contentions of his history with the company will only raise sore points and raise emotion.