{"id":1769,"date":"2017-01-30T02:31:14","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T02:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/192.241.231.59\/?p=1769"},"modified":"2017-02-26T20:25:16","modified_gmt":"2017-02-26T20:25:16","slug":"the-gift-of-fear-personal-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/the-gift-of-fear-personal-safety","title":{"rendered":"The Gift of Fear: Personal Safety for Travelers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A friend of mine who works for the US State Department gives me tons of great travel advice, especially when it comes to personal safety. Having spent significant amounts of time in all parts of Latin America, Europe, and the Indian subcontinent, she has\u2014to put it mildly\u2014seen some shit.<\/p>\n<p>But perhaps the best advice she has given me to date had nothing to do with a near-miss or a scary personal incident. Instead, it was merely this: \u201cRead <u>The Gift of Fear<\/u>.\u201d<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 120px; height: 240px;\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;OneJS=1&amp;Operation=GetAdHtml&amp;MarketPlace=US&amp;source=ac&amp;ref=tf_til&amp;ad_type=product_link&amp;tracking_id=kstarmer-20&amp;marketplace=amazon&amp;region=US&amp;placement=0440508835&amp;asins=0440508835&amp;linkId=af0bf5d0b7baba64757b914665936b0c&amp;show_border=false&amp;link_opens_in_new_window=false&amp;price_color=333333&amp;title_color=0066c0&amp;bg_color=ffffff\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Apparently, this book is required reading for all current Foreign Service personnel. And after having read it, I can completely understand why.<\/p>\n<p>The author\u2014Gavin De Becker\u2014is no slouch when it comes to personal safety. He runs a huge security firm that advises everyone from celebrities to government agencies, and has twice served on Presidential Advisory Boards at the US Department of Justice. Oprah called him the world\u2019s leading expert on violent behavior. In short, the man knows his stuff.<\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">In <u>The Gift of Fear<\/u>, De Becker shares a boatload of personal safety\u00a0knowledge that directly benefits the traveler.<\/h4>\n<p>The book begins in generalities, outlining statistics like \u201conly 20{5b94df0808d5051ae4460ba229ec68b809d99f898aebd4fa5019c7ba642362c2} of homicides are committed by strangers.\u201d In other words, your chances of being murdered actually <em>decrease<\/em> when you leave your home territory.<\/p>\n<p>Another important general point is, people are people. And as humans, we are all experts at reading others.<\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">It\u2019s only when we override our intuitive sense about others that we\u00a0put our personal safety at risk.<\/h4>\n<p>Turns out, the word \u201cintuition\u201d has its roots in the Latin \u201c<em>tueri<\/em>,\u201d which means \u201cto watch over.\u201d When our intuition kicks in\u2014when a situation just doesn\u2019t feel right\u2014De Becker argues that rather than attempt to use logic to explain to ourselves why we\u2019re being foolish, we should instead pay attention to that primal concern and figure out what\u2019s triggering it. What important information is our ancestral brain perceiving that is raising the alarm?<\/p>\n<p>De Becker also points out the absurd way in which humans typically evaluate risk. To those things we can\u2019t control (e.g., terrorist attacks), we give huge amounts of attention\u2026whereas those things of which we are completely in charge (e.g., drinking and driving), we tend to let them slide. What this means for the traveler is\u2026<\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">We\u2019ll stay home for fear of a car bomber at a tourist destination; but we\u2019ll scarf french fries and chain-smoke, incurring risks to our lives that are hundreds of times greater.<\/h4>\n<p>Another interesting observation the author makes concerns many people\u2019s belief that they are unable to predict violence because they are not familiar with violent behavior.<\/p>\n<p>He goes on to show how this is <em>utter poppycock<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>After all, we predict <em>non<\/em>violent behavior every day merely by the act of driving a car (Who is going to merge into my lane? Is that pedestrian going to step into the crosswalk before or after I get there?). Why should predicting potential violence be any different?<\/p>\n<p>The book then moves onto specific behaviors that indicate someone is a threat. This part is <em>really<\/em> juicy and\u2014to the traveler\u2014probably the most valuable part of the publication.<\/p>\n<h4>In summary, be on the lookout for:<\/h4>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Forced Teaming<\/strong>: someone you don\u2019t know very well referring to the two of you as \u201cwe,\u201d in an attempt to create a feeling of intimacy or camaraderie.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Charm<\/strong>: niceness doesn\u2019t necessarily indicate goodness in a person. Be alert.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Too Many Details<\/strong>: \u2026which are employed to cover up lies in their story.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Typecasting<\/strong>: saying something slightly insulting to you to get you to refute it (and in doing so, behave in the bad guy\u2019s desired way)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Loan Sharking<\/strong>: doing something (e.g., giving you something for free or offering unsolicited help) to get you into the bad guy\u2019s debt<\/li>\n<li><strong>Unsolicited Promises<\/strong>: if someone says, \u201cI promise,\u201d it\u2019s usually because they sense your hesitation in trusting them (due to your intuition!).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ignoring the Word \u201cNo<\/strong>\u201d: if you let them get away with ignoring it, you\u2019re sending a strong signal to the bad guy that he is in charge of you.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Note that all the above points address potential one-on-one threats\u2026but isn\u2019t that really what you should concern yourself with? I\u2019m not saying that you shouldn\u2019t prepare for potential disasters that are out of your control (e.g., a hotel fire); after all, you can\u2019t keep those calamities from occurring (but you CAN control how you react to them). But\u2026<\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">You are far more likely to suffer at the hands of a con man or a rapist than you are, say, an 8.5 earthquake\u2026no matter where in the world you might be.<\/h4>\n<p>The remainder of the book, while extremely enlightening, isn\u2019t particularly applicable to travel situations, but it\u2019s still worth your time if you want to learn about things like workplace violence and domestic abuse. It\u2019s not exactly uplifting reading&#8230;but it\u2019s important.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, there are two main take-aways from this book that are especially germane to the personal safety of travelers:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<h4>Violent acts are almost always predictable. You just need to pay attention to the signs.<\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h4>Fear is merely a servant of intuition, and <em>intuition<\/em> is what will keep you alive.<\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>As De Becker says, <strong>you\u2019re not prey\u2026so don\u2019t act like you are.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Be confident, trust yourself, and travel safe.<\/p>\n<p><em>This blog is an book review\u00a0from\u00a0the 2017 <a href=\"http:\/\/192.241.231.59\/art-of-smart-travel-bookclub\/\" target=\"_blank\">Art of Smart Travel Bookclub<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">**********<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Did you like this blog? Then you&#8217;ll luuuuv the newsletter! VIP content for the tribe, pretty much every week. We\u2019re talking extra travel tips, personal anecdotes, and behind-the-scenes shenanigans. Travel Tribe members help steer the future direction of\u00a0this site, so head on\u00a0over to\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/readybetty\">http:\/\/bit.ly\/readybetty<\/a>\u00a0for all the goodness!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A friend of mine who works for the US State Department gives me tons of great travel advice, especially when it comes to personal safety. Having spent significant amounts of time in all parts of Latin America, Europe, and the Indian subcontinent, she has\u2014to put it mildly\u2014seen some shit. But perhaps the best advice she has given me to date &#8230; <\/p>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/the-gift-of-fear-personal-safety\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1773,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,44,36,33],"tags":[45,14,29,15],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1769"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}