the gift of fear

I’ve given away over a dozen copies of Gavin de Becker’s book, The Gift of Fear. If you know me, and I haven’t bought you one, I’ve probably lent you mine or told you to go get it. Now.

I first fell upon The Gift in the late nineties as a postgraduate student at Manchester. When I was immersed in offender profiling and victimology and had John Douglas’s number tucked away on my mobile.

In short, The Gift is this: Women, when it comes to danger, do not ignore your gut because (you think) it makes you feel silly or weak. That gut is an evolved form of intuition that will keep you safe. And de Becker knows from safe. He’s a security specialist who designed an assessment system used to screen threats to U.S. Supreme Court Justices.

I’m reminded of this because I saw something about Oprah having de Becker on her show today. No idea if it was a repeat. Or even what times or stations it was on. Either way, here’s the book on Amazon. Please go have a look. And let me know if you caught the Oprah episode.