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

Name: The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence
SKU: 74008
Availability: InStock

4.7 | 12,574 ratings

Price: 29.66

Last update: 09-02-2024

About this item

A special edition of The Gift of Fear, with a new foreword by the author.

A stranger in a deserted parking lot offers to help carry a woman's groceries. Is he a good Samaritan, or is he after something else? A fired employee says "You'll be sorry". Will he return with a gun? After their first date, a man tells a woman it is their "destiny" to be married. What will he do when she won't see him again? A mother has an uneasy feeling about the nice babysitter she's just hired. Should she not go to work today?

These days, no one in America feels immune to violence. But now, in this extraordinary, groundbreaking book, the nation's leading expert on predicting violent behavior unlocks the puzzle of human violence and shows that, like every creature on earth, we have within us the ability to predict the harm others might do us and get out of its way. Contrary to popular myth, human violence almost always has a discernible motive and is preceded by clear warning signs.

Through dozens of compelling examples from his own career, Gavin de Becker teaches us how to read the signs, using our most basic but often most discounted survival skill - our intuition. The Gift of Fear is a remarkable, unique combination of practical guidance on leading a safer life and profound insight into human behavior.

J. Docken

A must read

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2024

This book by de Becker is a must read for everyone, especially women. Great information and anectdotal stories. There is info for absolutely everyone but particularly women. C'mon ladies - invest in this and take charge of your own safety.

Amazon Customer

You must read this

Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2024

Situational awareness is extremely important. This books helps you sharpen those skills.

theresa mitchell

Excellent book

Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2024

Excellent book. A lot of focus on internal interpretation of your senses and how we should trust our instincts. Easy read and lots of good rationale for writers theories.

AllisonD

Every woman should read!

Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2024

Bought copies for my nieces, as more often then not women are taught to shrink ourselves, be polite and accomodating, and sometimes to disastrous results. This book encourages one to develop their intuition and trust it, and lays out how with examples. High recommend!

Deonaha Conlin

One of the best reads ever. This is perfect to give to the kid leaving the nest.

Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2024

I wish this had been around before I was married the first time. It might have prevented that disaster.

The message is basically, TRUST YOUR GUT!!!! Something so many of us don't learn until we are forced to, and by then, it might be too late.

If you have a kid heading out into the world, into the wild, or are yourself taking that step, this is the perfect gift for them or yourself. It gives you a leg up on understanding why the hair on your neck just went up, why you just do NOT want to turn your back to someone that "feels" a bit skeevy. Even I, long past leaving the nest, learned a lot about trusting my gut, something I've instinctively done, in most cases, most of my life. And it helped me understand why I failed myself in situations I failed to "read" correctly.

I don't care who you are. You need this book.

RaquelElizabeth

Must read

Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2024

This book is a must read. Especially for women. As a survivor, there were warning signs. This book pretty much validates that my gut was trying to tell me something and I should have listened to it. I will never give any man the benefit of the doubt again. I was right! This society protects predators and not the victims. Predators are highly manipulative. We must learn to protect ourselves and listen to our intuition. I knew something was wrong and no one helped me. From now on I will help myself! I read this book because I never want to be a victim again! Now I will know to listen to my gut and stick up for myself, because no one else will. If something is off, it is. I wish I would have known sooner. I wish I would have read this book a long time ago!

P.J.

Excellent book for all ages/gender

Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2024

This book is a must read, especially for teens & young women.. although in this day and time, women and men of any age, including seniors, should give this a read. I won't try to describe the topic, I'll leave that to the author's description. I absolutely recommend this to everyone, especially the women in your life, if personal safety and good decision making is something you care about. DeBecker also has some great YouTube videos on this that are well worth the watch.

Tiffany O.

This is helpful for more than just crime and violence prevention

Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2012

This book was recommended to me by my ninjutsu instructor, who is also a US Marshall that deals with highly dangerous fugitives. If you are considering this book, allow me to boil it down a little for you. Think of how you can sleep in your own house, city or country, with all its unusual sounds, etc., and it won't bother you at all - you sleep right through it all - but if you travel somewhere else, it can be harder to sleep because you notice new sounds. Or, you can have a loud noise next to you that you're used to, so you will sleep through it (like an alarm clock!), but you'll wake SHARPLY at the quietest creak of a floor board? That *should* be counter-intuitive, right? One is loud, the other is quiet? DeBecker explains how the subconscious is processing something like (and I am misquoting him here I'm sure) 2000 things per minute when our conscious mind only does 50 (the ratio is similar even if the numbers are off - feel free to correct in comments if you recall the real numbers). So, while you sleep, your subconscious was processing all those sounds as normal and not normal, and that loud ice machine (or alarm clock lol) is "normal" - it belongs there. That floor board creaking oh so quietly? NOT normal, wake the hell up NOW!

THAT - your subconscious' ability to process thousands of things we aren't even aware of, then GIVE US CLUES - is the "gift of fear". What we struggle with as a society is knowing when it's that, and when it's just paranoia (hence the avoiding the news [or wrong/too much news] comments).

This book teaches you how to clear off the cobwebs and learn how to understand what your brain is telling you. I'm EXTREMELY analytical and empirically-driven - YET - I have always had strong intuition, and it didn't make sense to me that a "gut feeling" could be so accurate when it didn't have "empirical data" to back it up. It gives people like me who need to see a scientific reason for intuition just that - because it actually is simply a cause & effect of real processes.

There are so many astounding examples that I'd LOVE to put but I don't want to "spoil" the "OMG no way!" effect they had on me when I read them - so despite my enthusiasm, I will resist! But the examples, though some upsetting, are really astounding. To get the most of each, take each example and see if you can see how the principles apply. Train your brain.

The reason I say this is helpful in more than just crime and violence is that the subconscious processes clues on more than just violence and danger. It processes EVERYTHING. Body language experts do this, for example. The "intuition" aspect of this has also helped me in business and people relations, because I've opened myself up more to subconscious cues that I thought I was getting before but were "silly" - turns out they were NOT silly, and by learning how and when to listen, I make better decisions and actions.

If you really pay attention - maybe read this book twice! - this can really sharpen your skills in multiple areas. This is a book I recommend to so many people for so many reasons.

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