Speaker 1: Welcome to go Ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. Rolling on the full.
Speaker 1: Loafing is a thing I can I've seen you know,
Speaker 1: We've all seen people do it. I've done it kidding.
Speaker 1: For me now, the work is to want what I have,
Speaker 1: even kind of shinny stuff. You know, that's my work.
Speaker 1: It's it's imperfect. So let me ask you a question
Speaker 1: about actors because you are Yeah, me too. We are
Speaker 1: old funny duddies. We go to sleep at ten, we
Speaker 1: wake up at six, but we go to bed at eight,
Speaker 1: So there are more funny duddies than you. You are
Speaker 1: the funny duddiest. Yes, welcome to go ask Allie. I'm
Speaker 1: Alli Wentworth. I don't know about you, but I feel
Speaker 1: like we're all immersed in a very fear based culture.
Speaker 1: I'm scared of everything from global warming to nuclear war
Speaker 1: to the things I'm streaming on television which all see
Speaker 1: to be true crime. I think people read little things
Speaker 1: in magazines and then you somehow put them in a
Speaker 1: scenario within your own life and just scare the ship
Speaker 1: out of yourself. So what is our relationship with fear?
Speaker 1: What does it mean? How do we reduce it, how
Speaker 1: do we understand it? How do we intuite it? Well?
Speaker 1: My guest today is the genius of all these things.
Speaker 1: Gavin de Becker is a leading expert on the prediction
Speaker 1: and management of violence. Gavin's work has earned him three
Speaker 1: presidential appointments and a position on a Congressional committee. He
Speaker 1: was twice appointed to the President's Advisory Board at the
Speaker 1: U S Department of Justice. He's also a senior fellow
Speaker 1: at u c l A School of Public Policy and
Speaker 1: Social Research. Gavin is a New York Times bestselling author
Speaker 1: of The Gift of Fear, which I encourage everybody to read.
Speaker 1: His books about violence and safety are now published in
Speaker 1: eighteen languages and have been profiled in Time and Is Week,
Speaker 1: featured on Oprah Winfrey Sixty Minutes, and many many others.
Speaker 1: Please note that this episode contained some conversations about violence
Speaker 1: that some people may find disturbing. If you prefer to
Speaker 1: avoid this content, the topics and time codes are in
Speaker 1: the show notes. Gavin de Beecker, I have never been
Speaker 1: so scared in my life. And this is complete truth
Speaker 1: and honesty. And I think I can speak for my husband,
Speaker 1: George and most of my friends, Because, as you've talked
Speaker 1: about in your book and in lectures and stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: this isn't a These aren't l A freeway shootings. It's
Speaker 1: not some serial killer. I feel like the whole world
Speaker 1: is on fire, and I'm afraid of of our politicians
Speaker 1: being killed, of nuclear war, of global warming, of domestic
Speaker 1: and international terrorism. And you must hear this a lot.
Speaker 1: But how do I call my nerves? How do I
Speaker 1: live my life without constantly not being able to sleep
Speaker 1: because of anxiety and being in perpetual fear of so
Speaker 1: many things? I love the question because I can fix
Speaker 1: that in just a few seconds. Excellent with a pill.
Speaker 1: Now it actually takes a lot of pills, I'm sure.
Speaker 1: So you know, there is a thing that that governments
Speaker 1: tend to spray at people, which are worst case scenarios.
Speaker 1: Worst case scenarios. And the worst case scenario is not
Speaker 1: a prediction. It's not a uh an organized thought process.
Speaker 1: It is a creative process where people think, as they
Speaker 1: have to in government, what would be the worst thing
Speaker 1: that could happen with a virus, for example, this virus,
Speaker 1: what's the worst thing that could happen? Now, rarely do
Speaker 1: they say, here's the best thing that could happen, right,
Speaker 1: it could peter out, it could the variance could be
Speaker 1: better instead of worse, that kind of thing. So we
Speaker 1: see a lot of worst case scenarios, and I think
Speaker 1: it's valuable for people to know that the words scenario,
Speaker 1: of course, comes from scene. It is a creative exercise.
Speaker 1: And when we do that in our minds, you could say,
Speaker 1: for example, Captain, what's the worst case scenario on the
Speaker 1: flight fiery crash. That's the worst case scenario. Officer, what's
Speaker 1: the worst case scenario? Homicide? Doctor, what's the worst case scenario?
Speaker 1: Sudden death? But we don't live our lives that way,
Speaker 1: asking what are the worst case scenarios? Rather we ideally
Speaker 1: live our lives asking what are the likely events. So
Speaker 1: at home, on your refrigerator, you might have a list
Speaker 1: of phone numbers. You've got Dr Kellerman, you've got the pediatrician,
Speaker 1: you've got so and so, But you don't have the
Speaker 1: Nuclear Emergency Search Team, which is the organization that tracks
Speaker 1: down radioactive material that might be used by terrorists, for example,
Speaker 1: and they've got a bunch of helicopters, etcetera. But that's
Speaker 1: not on your refrigerator because it's actually not likely. And
Speaker 1: so what I encourage people to do is look at
Speaker 1: the likely events in their lives as opposed to the
Speaker 1: worst case scenario events. And this is the opposite of
Speaker 1: what government does, and it's the opposite of what media does.
Speaker 1: News media, right, news media. It's only news because it
Speaker 1: is something that isn't likely in your life. You know
Speaker 1: what is it that makes news? It is the unusual.
Speaker 1: It is specifically that which is not typically happening. If
Speaker 1: we were to be honest with the public and to
Speaker 1: shout at them about what's alarming, let's say the public
Speaker 1: health institutions of America, CDC, f d A, etcetera. What
Speaker 1: would they shout at us, If they were being accurate
Speaker 1: to reality, they would say, Um, accidents in the home
Speaker 1: a major killer. Millions of you will suffer these this week,
Speaker 1: and three thousand of you will die. That's exactly true,
Speaker 1: accidents in the home. However, because we know that accidents
Speaker 1: in the home are slightly under our control, because we
Speaker 1: know that they are not new, we tend to be
Speaker 1: less afraid of them than of any of the things
Speaker 1: you mentioned. Uh, the newest virus you know at the moment,
Speaker 1: for example, while while COVID is a current variant that
Speaker 1: is not particularly serious for the overwhelming majority of people,
Speaker 1: people your age and even my age, I'm sixty eight. Uh.
Speaker 1: The average age of death from the very beginning back
Speaker 1: in two thousand twenty was one. In Canada. This will
Speaker 1: be an interesting fact. In Canada, sevent of all the
Speaker 1: people whose deaths were attributed to COVID they lived in
Speaker 1: nursing homes. They were nursing home residents. So right away
Speaker 1: you could say, if I'm not a nursing home resident, um,
Speaker 1: I have a massively greater chance of surviving this virus
Speaker 1: than if I am a nursing home resident. And what
Speaker 1: kills nursing home residents, by the way, everything they're they're
Speaker 1: generally to die. Right in Los Angeles County, the average
Speaker 1: term of residency in a nursing home is less than
Speaker 1: six months. So when you say you've got a lot
Speaker 1: of deaths and you attribute them to COVID, for example,
Speaker 1: and the majority of them are in nursing homes, you
Speaker 1: basically can begin to and this is my answer to
Speaker 1: your question, exclude yourself from the likely candidates for that outcome.
Speaker 1: There are two forms of fear anxiety isn't even on
Speaker 1: the list. By the way, anxiety is not a fear.
Speaker 1: Anxiety and worry are a different thing, different part of
Speaker 1: the brain, different part of the heart. But there are
Speaker 1: two forms of fear. One that's enormously valuable, and that
Speaker 1: is true fear. True fear is a signal in the
Speaker 1: presence of danger. That means I see it, I hear it,
Speaker 1: I feel it, I taste it, I perceive it. It's
Speaker 1: a signal in the presence of danger lying right there,
Speaker 1: snake right there. I need to know that information. Unwarranted
Speaker 1: fear is not based on your senses. It is always
Speaker 1: based on your imagination or your memory. So I share
Speaker 1: this example with you. You're at the airport, you're boarding
Speaker 1: a plane, and you think, don't get on that plane.
Speaker 1: That I don't I don't feel good about that flight.
Speaker 1: I don't want to do it. I don't want to
Speaker 1: do it. So you can you can ask yourself what
Speaker 1: is the cause of that fear. Is it, uh, something
Speaker 1: you saw on the news about an airplane crash in
Speaker 1: Brazil three months ago, in which case it's in your
Speaker 1: imagination or your memory, or is it because you just
Speaker 1: saw the two pilots stumbling out of the bar and
Speaker 1: wobbling their way onto the aircraft. That would be in
Speaker 1: your environment. That would be something you sense, and that
Speaker 1: would be true fear. So the difference between true fear
Speaker 1: and unwarranted fear is the answer to your question, which
Speaker 1: is could it happened that we would have nuclear war?
Speaker 1: For example? Could it happen? Is never the question to
Speaker 1: ask could it happen? We always know the answer. I
Speaker 1: can give you the answer for every good question right now. Yes,
Speaker 1: yes you can have heart failure right now, Yes you
Speaker 1: could it, absolutely. But the question we all ask in
Speaker 1: our lives is what's most likely? What's most likely to happen.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you one last example in the longest
Speaker 1: answer in podcast history, I don't think so oh oh,
Speaker 1: you must have had somebody even more longer. I think
Speaker 1: my third question is going to have a longer answer,
Speaker 1: But go ahead. I'm gonna get ready, I'll have a
Speaker 1: I'll have a brief break between now and then. Um,
Speaker 1: the in your home, in anybody's home, any viewer or
Speaker 1: listener of the podcast. Uh. We know that helicopters could
Speaker 1: land on the roof with intruders who could core through
Speaker 1: the ceiling and lower themselves with ropes into our apartment
Speaker 1: or home. That could happen, but we've made the decision
Speaker 1: that a more likely area of entry is the front
Speaker 1: door or the front window, so we put locks on
Speaker 1: the front door and the front window. My point there
Speaker 1: is that could is simply always the wrong question when
Speaker 1: it comes to safety, because we have to be able
Speaker 1: to to act every day and and face life, and
Speaker 1: life itself is a sexually transmitted, always fatal condition. Everybody dies,
Speaker 1: and the question we have to ask ourselves is not
Speaker 1: how shall we die, but how shall we live? And
Speaker 1: that's the choice. And so we do have to set
Speaker 1: aside risks. To fly to the moon. As an astronaut,
Speaker 1: I have to set aside the risk of getting on
Speaker 1: top of a giant uh, you know, a bag of
Speaker 1: fuel and lighting the match, which is basically what a
Speaker 1: rocket is. To build that bridge, I have to set
Speaker 1: aside the risk of crossing that big expanse of water
Speaker 1: and the bridge that you drive over, often yourself. Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Bridge and others. People died building those bridges, all of them,
Speaker 1: and so it they had to set aside risks and
Speaker 1: and take risks and and and still act you know,
Speaker 1: as a parent, we have to you know, we're walking
Speaker 1: around almost like our hearts are outside our bodies. These
Speaker 1: these children we care about so much, and yet we
Speaker 1: have to say, Okay, you can go, you can go
Speaker 1: on that thing, you're old enough to cross that street,
Speaker 1: you can ride that bicycle. We know, of course all
Speaker 1: variety of injury can come to them, as it can
Speaker 1: come to us, but we we act with courage and
Speaker 1: almost done. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage
Speaker 1: is acting in the face of fear. I know something,
Speaker 1: I'm doing a podcast. I could make a terrible mistake
Speaker 1: and be canceled for something I say. But I'm acting anyway,
Speaker 1: and I'm not unafraid of the mistakes I might make
Speaker 1: or you might make her who knows what may happen.
Speaker 1: But I'm willing to act in the face of those fears.
Speaker 1: That's courage, and that I would say that I do
Speaker 1: that with my children. I don't want my daughter to
Speaker 1: go out at ten o'clock at night to a party downtown.
Speaker 1: But if I don't let her go and she doesn't
Speaker 1: go out and experience the world, I'll stimately I'm not
Speaker 1: helping her, even though I saw the the movie Abducted
Speaker 1: or whatever it was called. I mean, I feel like
Speaker 1: everything on streaming right now starts with a dead white girl.
Speaker 1: So you know, my my fears are always with my daughters.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, something's going to happen. So but I
Speaker 1: try to override that. Um. I do want to talk
Speaker 1: about the media with you, because you do. You've talked
Speaker 1: a lot in your book, particularly about using fear to
Speaker 1: get people to watch. And I feel like it's everywhere
Speaker 1: everywhere I look. When I try to escape and watch
Speaker 1: something on TV, it it makes me scared. And I
Speaker 1: don't know, should we turn off the news? Should we
Speaker 1: only watch Seinfeld? Um? How do we find a constructive
Speaker 1: balance between everything that is we're inundated by on a
Speaker 1: day to day basis with the media. All right, So
Speaker 1: a couple of things. One is that I do believe
Speaker 1: that the news media, and particularly television and particularly local news,
Speaker 1: is very bad for people when it comes to getting information.
Speaker 1: I encourage people to choose their avenue for going and
Speaker 1: getting the information. Meaning the Internet is so remarkable, with
Speaker 1: all its failings. It's so remarkable that I could say, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm a little interested today in the homicide rate in Sweden.
Speaker 1: I can go find that information, but if I wait
Speaker 1: for the local news to scream it at me and
Speaker 1: spray it at me, it will be presented in the
Speaker 1: most alarming way possible. Years ago, I used to joke that, uh,
Speaker 1: the Channel two News ought to say, welcome to the
Speaker 1: Channel two News. We're surprised you made it through another day,
Speaker 1: and here's what happened to those that didn't, and then
Speaker 1: they would give you the death litany all the ways
Speaker 1: in which people died. And so you know, years ago
Speaker 1: there was a big earthquake in l A. And after
Speaker 1: the earthquake there was all kinds of news media reports,
Speaker 1: was this the big one? What about if the big
Speaker 1: one comes? And one of my favorites was on CBS
Speaker 1: uh k n x T I think was the CBS
Speaker 1: affiliate in Los Angeles, and it said what would have
Speaker 1: happened if the earthquake had also caused a tsunami? And
Speaker 1: they had Los Angeles graphics showing waves going over forty
Speaker 1: story buildings in downtown l A. And my first thought was,
Speaker 1: if there had been a tsunami, we wouldn't have to
Speaker 1: pick up all this glass that we were sweeping around
Speaker 1: our House. That was the funny part. The not funny
Speaker 1: part was that they did a graphic and they showed
Speaker 1: you what Los Angeles would be like if if if, if,
Speaker 1: if could could could could, And so that is bad
Speaker 1: for us. That very element is bad for us. And
Speaker 1: I think one thing that's going on now that is
Speaker 1: new and particularly destructive, and we see it probably most
Speaker 1: of all with public health issues is that the government
Speaker 1: and the news media are aligned. Now, you could say
Speaker 1: how nice, but of course the history of the value
Speaker 1: of the news media was to ask tough questions of
Speaker 1: an Anthony Fauci or a doctor more La, the CEO
Speaker 1: of Viser. Whenever prior to this time did the news
Speaker 1: media say, oh, okay, okay, great viser, Sure we like it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good enough for us. There'd be questions. There'd
Speaker 1: be a lot of questions, and there'd be a lot
Speaker 1: of press conferences, and there'd be people refusing to attend
Speaker 1: press conferences and people reporting on that. And there is
Speaker 1: something about public health and pharma that somehow takes the
Speaker 1: spine and the legs out of the news media. And
Speaker 1: that's something might include the fact that between seventy and
Speaker 1: of cable news channels are sponsored by Visor and other
Speaker 1: pharma companies. That's a problem. Uh. And so it's why
Speaker 1: is it a problem? Because it does incline you to
Speaker 1: not want to begin your telecast today with all the
Speaker 1: failings in a clinical trial if you feel there wordy
Speaker 1: for example. And so what we're seeing is, I is
Speaker 1: there more fear because at the current moment we don't
Speaker 1: have an advocate in the news media or in the
Speaker 1: government balancing the only thing we get. So, for example,
Speaker 1: politicians starting with Trump going through Biden um talk about
Speaker 1: the big story of our lives, which is this pandemic
Speaker 1: probably the biggest event in world history. And I don't
Speaker 1: mean because of COVID, I mean because of government reaction lockdowns.
Speaker 1: When you have billions of people affected in terms of
Speaker 1: their day to day lives, that's a big deal. So
Speaker 1: that issue that I'm that I'm zeroing in on, which
Speaker 1: is that normally you had government saying here's the new
Speaker 1: thing to be afraid of, and I a politician, I'm
Speaker 1: going to fix this for you, and you've got to
Speaker 1: be aware of it. Blah blah blah. Historically, governments throughout
Speaker 1: human history have used fear to control populations, it's either
Speaker 1: fear of the other, the bad guys in the next village,
Speaker 1: or it's fear of internal uh risks like terrorism. But
Speaker 1: whatever it is, that's what governments do. They use fear
Speaker 1: to control conduct and behavior. So, if you imagine, to
Speaker 1: put it in very simple terms, the king and the queen,
Speaker 1: they're looking over the castle wall, and there's always a
Speaker 1: castle wall. They're not walking around with everybody else for
Speaker 1: good reason. And they look over and they see the
Speaker 1: population is fighting with each other, and that is good news.
Speaker 1: They high five each other, because the only bad news
Speaker 1: for the king and the queen is when everybody feels
Speaker 1: the same way. That's when you get real change. That's
Speaker 1: when you get Tunisia or Egypt or the Arab sprint.
Speaker 1: And so at the current moment, the division that we see,
Speaker 1: and it is profound. It is civil war profound. The
Speaker 1: division that we see. That division is encouraged by those
Speaker 1: in power. It is not discouraged. And I say those
Speaker 1: in power doesn't mean just an administration. I mean a government.
Speaker 1: Administrations come and go, government stays. And so when you
Speaker 1: have government doing what governments do they never haven't, which
Speaker 1: is used fear to control populations. And to and to
Speaker 1: influence events. And you also have the news media doing it,
Speaker 1: which they always have, but they were a check in
Speaker 1: balance prior to this moment. The challenge there is that
Speaker 1: at the moment we are being hit with fear from
Speaker 1: government and media and they're not in conflict, they are aligned.
Speaker 1: COVID is the worst thing in world history. It ain't
Speaker 1: not even close. Uh lockdowns are good, they ain't not
Speaker 1: even close. So anyway, my, my, my, My ending to
Speaker 1: this answer is that fear is worse today for everyone
Speaker 1: than it was two and a half years ago. In fact,
Speaker 1: I would add sounds like a politician, but everything is
Speaker 1: worse than it was two and a half years ago.
Speaker 1: And so you don't you don't see the King and
Speaker 1: Queen looking down and seeing this polarized political parties um
Speaker 1: as a good thing? Now do you know? It's it's
Speaker 1: like you said, there's civil unrest. Do you think that's
Speaker 1: a good thing or a bad thing? Well? I think
Speaker 1: it's a bad thing, But I assure you politicians think
Speaker 1: it's a good thing. Uh, leaders and and people in
Speaker 1: the White House that comes and goes. Of course, I'm
Speaker 1: sixty eight, so you get a fair number of people
Speaker 1: coming and going in the White House, and it's and
Speaker 1: you see that it's not all about them people in power,
Speaker 1: like division among the population period that includes the news media,
Speaker 1: who would have very little to report. CNN would have
Speaker 1: even less viewership than it has now. Fox would have
Speaker 1: even less viewership than it has now if they didn't
Speaker 1: have the the stridency of their disagreements. Uh. And the
Speaker 1: and the division. The division is good for business. It
Speaker 1: is extremely bad for the citizens. However, extremely bad because
Speaker 1: we are social animals. And yet what's happened in the
Speaker 1: last two and a half years that, in my view,
Speaker 1: must never happen again, is the ability for direct communication
Speaker 1: from power to the individual news media or direct communication
Speaker 1: from controlled power social media to the individual, and not
Speaker 1: a whole lot of communication among each other. So all
Speaker 1: we're left with is our controversies. Whereas when we're allowed
Speaker 1: to be together, concert, beach, shopping, uh event, we are
Speaker 1: at our best. So that's their thing, that's okay, But
Speaker 1: you don't give them the central position in our lives,
Speaker 1: top of the news, top of the White House all day,
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. When you do that for any one topic,
Speaker 1: we suffer. It could be a war, it could be crime.
Speaker 1: Anything that you make one topic. That's not what life
Speaker 1: is like. There's a lot more to come after the
Speaker 1: short break and we're back. I read your book a
Speaker 1: while ago, but I remember thinking, yes, I'm somebody that
Speaker 1: sees a serial rapist on the news and I'm convinced
Speaker 1: he's out right outside my door, when in fact it's
Speaker 1: a guy in you know, northern California who's three thousand
Speaker 1: miles away from me. But yet I kind of and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people do this. You make
Speaker 1: it about you, You put yourself in that scenario, in
Speaker 1: that creative, you know, image that you have. UM. But
Speaker 1: I want to talk about spousal homicide because you say
Speaker 1: you can actually predict the violence that is imminent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pre incident indicators. But I do just want to say
Speaker 1: quickly because you said, I say it's it's predictable. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think it's the most predictable serious crime in our
Speaker 1: lives that that never happens. Where everybody says or the
Speaker 1: victim says, well, I had no idea that was coming.
Speaker 1: Bob just came home and killed me. That's not what's
Speaker 1: going on. She's been afraid, she's been concerned. There have
Speaker 1: been police calls, there have been visits. You know, he
Speaker 1: had usually witnessed violence in his childhood. He uh, he
Speaker 1: made threats, He used weapons as an instrument of power.
Speaker 1: He glorified weapons. He broke things in the house, which
Speaker 1: is called symbolic violence. He you know, tore up the
Speaker 1: picture that she was in. He tore up the wedding gown. Um,
Speaker 1: she showed up at work wearing sunglasses. On and on
Speaker 1: and on and on. It is never uh that. It's
Speaker 1: the example I use as you have two wolves on
Speaker 1: a mountain path somewhere and they meet each other face
Speaker 1: to face, and one the ears go back, and the
Speaker 1: tail gets big, and the hair goes up on their neck,
Speaker 1: and a low growl starts, and then one attacks the other.
Speaker 1: The victim wolf never says, oh, I had no idea
Speaker 1: that was coming. All the signals have been exchanged, and
Speaker 1: human beings are no different. Do you think you can
Speaker 1: predict violence not only in a spousal homicide, but can
Speaker 1: you predict violence in so many different other scenarios? Like
Speaker 1: could you tell me if there's gonna be a lot
Speaker 1: of civil unrest? It's true different each kind of prediction,
Speaker 1: and there are many that society makes. Is this employee
Speaker 1: gonna work out well for me? Is this boyfriend going
Speaker 1: to turn out to be a great guy or a
Speaker 1: dangerous guy? Is this pilot gonna do a good job? Etcetera.
Speaker 1: And what people often say is, well, you never know
Speaker 1: about people. And who says that is the principle of
Speaker 1: the school that hired the teacher who molested the kids, Oh, well,
Speaker 1: you never know about people. Um, going directly to your question.
Speaker 1: The years ago, when I used to give speeches, I
Speaker 1: would ask the audience, is there anybody here who is
Speaker 1: at this talk today and had had to have childcare
Speaker 1: arranged in order to be here? And several hundred people
Speaker 1: would raise their hands, and I would say, is there
Speaker 1: anybody here who's not fully comfortable with the child care
Speaker 1: that they've arranged? And a bunch of people would raise
Speaker 1: their hands, and I would say, go home. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: this is not where you want to be. But when
Speaker 1: I interviewed people in the audience, invariably the people who
Speaker 1: told me I am absolutely comfortable with my child care,
Speaker 1: they say, we love her, we consider her a member
Speaker 1: of our family, we trust her completely. They don't say, well,
Speaker 1: you never know about people. They have a strong feeling
Speaker 1: of certainty about it. And when you have a strong
Speaker 1: feeling of certainty in either direction, that's meaningful. The prediction
Speaker 1: you asked me about, can we predict social unrest, Well,
Speaker 1: it couldn't be easier to predict because we already have
Speaker 1: social unrest. We've had sixteen thousand, thousand demonstrations since the
Speaker 1: beginning of lockdowns in the United States, so you already have.
Speaker 1: You'd have to describe Los Angeles as a being in
Speaker 1: a state of social unrest, between homelessness, between crime. It's
Speaker 1: not all organized social unrest, like they're all standing in
Speaker 1: the same place holding the same sign. But the universal
Speaker 1: pre incident indicator for violence, there is a universal pre
Speaker 1: incident indicator. It's always present, and that is misery. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The person who comes to school uh and shoots up
Speaker 1: his former students or former teachers, the person who comes
Speaker 1: to work and shoots up as co workers. These are
Speaker 1: people in misery. They are alienated, they are in need,
Speaker 1: they are suffering, and so that is always present. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: human beings don't don't kill each other. There are very
Speaker 1: minor exceptions to that, which includes soldiers and police officers
Speaker 1: and people who we accept all right, that's a killing
Speaker 1: we brought into But the the pilot in the Middle
Speaker 1: East who kills a group of people on the ground
Speaker 1: with a missile, and the terrorist who comes to New
Speaker 1: York City and flies an airplane into a building, they're
Speaker 1: making the same kind of rationalization for killing. One is
Speaker 1: not a monster and the other one a saint. Both
Speaker 1: are deciding, based on the narrative in their heads that
Speaker 1: this is justified. So justification is the key. January six
Speaker 1: justified in the in the minds of the people who
Speaker 1: showed up to demonstrate outside the capital uh Minneapolis. All
Speaker 1: the fires and riots and looting, justified in the minds
Speaker 1: of people who were reacting to the death of George Floyd.
Speaker 1: And so justification is a key component. Um. I think
Speaker 1: about a lot of our politicians now, I would guess
Speaker 1: there are a lot more death threats on our congressmen
Speaker 1: and women and our senators than ever before. That's true,
Speaker 1: that's true. Okay, that's what I thought. Um. And yet
Speaker 1: yet the government doesn't pay to have them have any security.
Speaker 1: That's that's that's that's not correct. The security is now
Speaker 1: provided to more public officials than at any time in
Speaker 1: our history. It used to be that the Secretary of
Speaker 1: the Interior had a driver, but he didn't have bodyguards.
Speaker 1: Now every member of the cabinet has bodyguards assigned in
Speaker 1: the In the Senate, you have the Speaker of the
Speaker 1: House has a full time protective detail. Vice President, vice
Speaker 1: president's family, President president's family, former presidents, former president's family,
Speaker 1: Secretary of State, on and on and on. But can
Speaker 1: we provide it to thirty five members of Congress. No,
Speaker 1: we can't do it. I mean, what do do you
Speaker 1: want to do? You want to spend billions of dollars
Speaker 1: protecting people who go into public life. And one of
Speaker 1: the risks of public life, be it the small town
Speaker 1: mayor or the president, is that you're going to uh,
Speaker 1: You're going to encounter people who are angry, people who
Speaker 1: are hostile, mentally ill. People that goes with public life. Now,
Speaker 1: I support protection for presidents, even though mayors get attacked
Speaker 1: more often than presidents. Oh yes, and a bunch of
Speaker 1: mayors have been shot and killed. And there you know
Speaker 1: where they live, and they live in your town and
Speaker 1: you're piste off about what happened with your building permit
Speaker 1: and you show up at the mayor's house. Um, and so.
Speaker 1: But but I don't think we can we can solve
Speaker 1: that problem with bodyguards. Uh, look what we're already doing
Speaker 1: a few billion dollars now being spent after January six
Speaker 1: on on fences and all variety of physical changes for
Speaker 1: this very small facility. It's only a few acres the
Speaker 1: US capital. Um, do we need to do it? Well,
Speaker 1: we have had one event in our history that would
Speaker 1: tell us that we need to do it, But it doesn't.
Speaker 1: It's not a good direction to move in because what
Speaker 1: happens is when every federal building is bulletproof, and every
Speaker 1: federal building has a you know, five yard space around
Speaker 1: it with ballers that you can't drive a truck toward it, etcetera, etcetera. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a different kind of future, and it is letting individuals.
Speaker 1: We had the you know, the bombing in Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: of the Federal building. Now, teen children died that in
Speaker 1: that bombing because there was a child care facility there.
Speaker 1: But nineteen children die every week killed by a parent
Speaker 1: in the United States. And so we have to sort
Speaker 1: of balance, and unfortunately politics doesn't balance very well because
Speaker 1: politics talks about what's got our attention. You said the
Speaker 1: rapist in the park. You know, those stories are so
Speaker 1: interesting Because I'm here in such and such park, Candlestick Park,
Speaker 1: where yesterday the serial rapist was arrested, and I'm interviewing
Speaker 1: a woman. I'm terrified to go in the park. Wait
Speaker 1: a second, back up, he was arrested yesterday. There's one
Speaker 1: less rapist. It's better than it was before. And yet,
Speaker 1: as human beings, and as you said, you do naturally
Speaker 1: we put ourselves in that circumstance and we think, I
Speaker 1: don't want to go to that park. But when we
Speaker 1: do that, now the park becomes less occupied. Look at
Speaker 1: New York City. New York City is safe and was
Speaker 1: much safer years ago because we occupied it. We were
Speaker 1: out there on the streets, we were out there in
Speaker 1: the parts, we were using the space. As soon as
Speaker 1: we stop using the space, the only people left are
Speaker 1: criminals and victims. That's what happens in city and LA
Speaker 1: has its version. In l A, we have something called
Speaker 1: fort Apache architecture. Fort Apache is a is a concept
Speaker 1: that says that in the Old West you used to
Speaker 1: scurry through the Indian territory to get to the next fort,
Speaker 1: and you'd only be safe if you were in the fort.
Speaker 1: So we surrendered all the land outside the forts Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: the Beverly Center, big center, tiny little door to go in,
Speaker 1: the Bondaventure Hotel downtown, big glass building, tiny little door
Speaker 1: to go in. When you go in, wow, beautiful atrium, plants, fantastic,
Speaker 1: but outside ship. And so when we do that, we
Speaker 1: go through our gated to state, We get in our car,
Speaker 1: we drive through the dangerous park, we pull into the
Speaker 1: Beverly Center, and then we're okay. But what we're doing
Speaker 1: is surrendering two criminals all the other space, two criminals
Speaker 1: and poor people ultimately who suffered the most and who
Speaker 1: are the predominantly the victims of homicides and crimes. So
Speaker 1: we need to be brave. We need to do what
Speaker 1: Israel does. Israel has a bus is blown up, and
Speaker 1: the next day people are lining up to ride that
Speaker 1: next bus on the same route. What does America, doing
Speaker 1: the same circumstance, put our guards on the bus, make
Speaker 1: the bus bulletproof, change the bus, don't take the bus,
Speaker 1: of course, and uh and you know next up people
Speaker 1: who took the bus and their funerals and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a it's a challenge. Look, it's a challenge,
Speaker 1: but we've never what's changed in world history? You asked
Speaker 1: me about the King and Queen? And do people still
Speaker 1: like division? They love it? Yes, politicians, please more. But
Speaker 1: what's changed is over a thousand years ago with the
Speaker 1: King and Queen. Is this electronic business we're on right now?
Speaker 1: What's changed is the ability to speak globally and influence
Speaker 1: news globally. Facebook takes off hate speech, for example. Ain't
Speaker 1: that great? But do we want Facebook deciding what's hate
Speaker 1: speech or what's got to be said or what's I
Speaker 1: don't not at all. I prefer that the solution to
Speaker 1: speech we don't like is speech we do like. I
Speaker 1: prefer that method, and that's how you and I grew
Speaker 1: up most of our lives. Of Course, people are going
Speaker 1: to say ship you don't like. Of course they are,
Speaker 1: and they usually suffer for it. And it's time for
Speaker 1: a short break. Welcome back to go ask Ali. So.
Speaker 1: I didn't know the difference between intuition and fear until
Speaker 1: I was living in Los Angeles and I was attacked
Speaker 1: by a gang and they robbed me and they threw
Speaker 1: me up against the car they were preparing to gang
Speaker 1: rate me. They were lining up, they were came my
Speaker 1: clothes off and then started screaming at each other in
Speaker 1: Spanish and then tried to push me in the car.
Speaker 1: And I was in a complete submissive state. I was
Speaker 1: going to do exactly what they told me to do,
Speaker 1: and I was shut down. I mean it was a
Speaker 1: survival thing of just completely shutting down, leaving my body.
Speaker 1: And at one point I looked over at this guy
Speaker 1: that I was with when we were both attacked, and
Speaker 1: he mouthed to me, don't get in. And it hit
Speaker 1: me on such a visceral level, and it immediately my
Speaker 1: instinct was if I get in this car, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be killed. And I turned around and I ran
Speaker 1: as fast as I could. Two of the gang members
Speaker 1: chased me, couldn't catch me. You know, long story short,
Speaker 1: I tried to I stopped some cars. My friend was
Speaker 1: being stabbed but survived. But this experience taught me that
Speaker 1: I that a part of me that I wasn't even
Speaker 1: aware of, which I call my gut, said to me,
Speaker 1: in its most survivalist way, run basically run. And so
Speaker 1: that's what I you know, that's uh, I don't know
Speaker 1: how you I mean, you could term it better than me,
Speaker 1: but it's almost like survival. It's my my survival gut
Speaker 1: or that voice or tendency. It's not really fight or flight.
Speaker 1: It's more, um, you've got your hyper instinctual about a situation.
Speaker 1: It's true, and it's it's really at the center of
Speaker 1: my work is intuition. And when I was writing Gift
Speaker 1: of Fear, the the word I learned the origin of
Speaker 1: the word is in tear, which means to guard and
Speaker 1: to protect. And you mentioned your gut. The gut actually
Speaker 1: has neurons. It has more neurons, more brain cells in
Speaker 1: effect than a dog has. It has a great deal
Speaker 1: of intelligence, and it has intelligence that's unfiltered when when
Speaker 1: it's up here we filter it. Oh, I don't want
Speaker 1: to be that kind person. I'll just get in the
Speaker 1: elevator with that scary guy and so we get into
Speaker 1: a steel, sound proof chamber with somebody we're afraid of.
Speaker 1: No other animal in nature would do that. So I
Speaker 1: think that when I'm a big believer in listening to intuition,
Speaker 1: and intuition says, in effect, shut up and do exactly
Speaker 1: what I tell you, and I'll get you out of here.
Speaker 1: And sometimes it's counterintuitive, Like you were told, always cooperate
Speaker 1: with people or they'll kill you. Know, very often that's
Speaker 1: exactly the opposite of true. And so the the the
Speaker 1: experience you just recounted to me reminds me of a
Speaker 1: woman I interviewed where she said, uh that. She said
Speaker 1: it was like an animal uncoiled inside me, and I
Speaker 1: was a passenger on my own legs, meaning the thing
Speaker 1: was happening, and the there's a woman I interviewed who
Speaker 1: was attacked with her six year old daughter. She'd put
Speaker 1: in the car and she had to get around the
Speaker 1: car and get into the driver's seat. And she as
Speaker 1: she got into the driver's seat, the guy was upon
Speaker 1: her and he was trying to hold her legs, and
Speaker 1: she heard the in her mind car key, and she thought,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be the kind of person who
Speaker 1: sticks a key in this guy's eye. But amazingly she
Speaker 1: had already done it, and the car door had already
Speaker 1: closed and she had already driven away, and then she said, um, gee,
Speaker 1: at least I didn't, you know, stick him in both eyes.
Speaker 1: And then she realized she had done that too. Boom boom,
Speaker 1: And so intuition had handled the whole situation. So I'm
Speaker 1: a big believer in intuition, and I believe that it
Speaker 1: is our nuclear defense system. Nature has made such a
Speaker 1: huge investment in human beings, every one of us, with
Speaker 1: these millions of neurons and this remarkable system that we are,
Speaker 1: and this shared collective genius and the individual genius that
Speaker 1: there's no way your daughters were built as the most
Speaker 1: recent model of human being without a defense system, and
Speaker 1: they have a nuclear defense system. And that is intuition.
Speaker 1: Intuition is just the communication method by which you get
Speaker 1: the signal for your survivor. So how does intuition speak
Speaker 1: with us? It speaks with us through gut feelings, through um,
Speaker 1: through hunches, through suspicion. Uh, that is an interesting word
Speaker 1: to suspicion, because suspicion people think, oh, I don't want
Speaker 1: to be suspicious of somebody. But all it means the
Speaker 1: words suspice are the root. It means to watch. It
Speaker 1: just means watch, just means pay attention. So fear is
Speaker 1: one of the signals of intuition. It's the one that's
Speaker 1: hardest to ignore because we feel terrible and and it
Speaker 1: gets our attention. But there are many signals of intuition, hunches,
Speaker 1: gut feelings. Curiosity is a signal of intuition, like why
Speaker 1: did I and then you get the idea and you
Speaker 1: don't go in that underground parking lot. So the key
Speaker 1: is to listen to it, to listen to intuition and
Speaker 1: give it a voice and let it, don't prosecute it,
Speaker 1: and send it on its way. That's what we do
Speaker 1: a lot. Oh, I don't want to be like that.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get in this elevator or this is a
Speaker 1: this is a very sophisticated hospital, the Sisters of Mercy.
Speaker 1: For Christ's sake, I should listen to the doctor, not
Speaker 1: if you think you should, not if you have a
Speaker 1: strong feeling that says whoa, whoa, wha, not this guy.
Speaker 1: And there's a bunch of stories in my book of
Speaker 1: people who did listen to doctors who were doing surgery
Speaker 1: on their kids and regretted it because they had the
Speaker 1: feeling not this doctor. Is it okay to take your kid,
Speaker 1: get in the car and go home. Yes? Is it
Speaker 1: okay to stand in line at the at the clinic
Speaker 1: or hospital for some treatment and feel I'll change my mind? Yes,
Speaker 1: you can do that. You can do that, and I
Speaker 1: do want to be sure at some time that there
Speaker 1: is that I tell everybody there is a Gift of
Speaker 1: Fear master Class series that's available for free at Gift
Speaker 1: of Fear dot com. I'm not charging anybody for it's
Speaker 1: it's ten episodes long. I'm very proud of it. It's
Speaker 1: interviewing a lot of people who prevailed through violence, and um,
Speaker 1: and I can. I can plug it mercilessly because it's free. Um.
Speaker 1: Not everybody reads books, and not everybody has time to
Speaker 1: read books, and so Gift to Fear is a great book.
Speaker 1: It's out there. Uh. But the Gift of Fear master
Speaker 1: Class series is I really aimed at younger people who
Speaker 1: could absorb it in in video form, and it's Gift
Speaker 1: of Fear dot com. That's it. End of the plug,
Speaker 1: which is great. It's a perfect way to end the
Speaker 1: podcast before we go. You know, I ask in my
Speaker 1: podcast lots and lots of questions to my guests, and
Speaker 1: then I get to turn around and you get to
Speaker 1: ask me anything, my my cupcake recipe, whatever you want.
Speaker 1: So what would you like to ask me? Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. It's not about cupcake recipe. I have no
Speaker 1: interest in baking, but I love banana bread that my
Speaker 1: wife makes. That's a plug for our banana bread. My
Speaker 1: question for you has to do with the news media also,
Speaker 1: but in a in a very specific sense. How do
Speaker 1: you deal with disagreement with your um, your husband, with George?
Speaker 1: How do you deal with disagreement when you see something differently,
Speaker 1: when you feel differently about it, how do you deal
Speaker 1: with it? Well, when we first got married, how we
Speaker 1: dealt with it was I thought, well, he's a Rhodes scholar,
Speaker 1: so he probably knows better than me. That didn't last
Speaker 1: very long. And now I think, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that our fundamental beliefs are the same. I don't you know,
Speaker 1: we're not a James Carvill Mary Matlin. You know, we
Speaker 1: don't fight over politics. I would say that George is
Speaker 1: incredibly receptive to conversation, UM, but we we rarely disagree.
Speaker 1: There are times where I'm more of an alarmist about things.
Speaker 1: You know, I just a week ago, you know, I
Speaker 1: was hearing from people, Oh my god, you know, nuclear
Speaker 1: war missiles North Korea, Uh, you know Putin And people
Speaker 1: are like, you know, we're gonna go live in Portugal
Speaker 1: or we're gonna go to Malta. And I was eating
Speaker 1: dinner with George and I looked over at him and
Speaker 1: I said, so, what are we going to do in
Speaker 1: case of a nuclear war? And George just looked at
Speaker 1: me and he said, We're going to die. And I said, oh,
Speaker 1: shouldn't we be planning anything? Is No, I think it's
Speaker 1: better we just die. And then I was like somewhat calmed,
Speaker 1: and you know, finished my meat loaf. But so we
Speaker 1: do listen to each other, you know. And if I
Speaker 1: have a very and I've had very strong opinions, um,
Speaker 1: he knows when that tone and that passion comes out
Speaker 1: of me that I'm serious. And usually I'm right. When
Speaker 1: I get to that heightened state, I'm usually right. That's intuition.
Speaker 1: That that's intuition usually and and true for my wife
Speaker 1: and me too. And I just want to say, you
Speaker 1: said your values are aligned, and that's at the core
Speaker 1: of this issue of public division, because in fact, if
Speaker 1: we knew the values of those terrible people we judge, um,
Speaker 1: we would find they are also aligned. The reality is
Speaker 1: that the people in those countries, and the people in
Speaker 1: the South, and the people who voted for Trump, and
Speaker 1: the people of this. The people of that all care
Speaker 1: about their kids having a good life, all care about
Speaker 1: the people they love, all care about being heard and recognized,
Speaker 1: all care about being part of something vastly more, as
Speaker 1: I write about in Gift of Fear, vastly more we
Speaker 1: have in common than we have in contrast. And thank
Speaker 1: you for the answer, by the way, that was a
Speaker 1: great answer, and I really appreciate and I'm glad you
Speaker 1: guys talk about everything. That's a great way to do it.
Speaker 1: Because all forbidden speech in relationships is toxic, All forbidden
Speaker 1: topics are toxic because we don't actually have a dialogue
Speaker 1: and we don't get anywhere. No, I always say to George,
Speaker 1: our whole country needs to be in couple therapy. Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very true. So anyway, Gavin, thank you very much,
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to go ask Ali. You can
Speaker 1: watch his free master class on personal safety at Gift
Speaker 1: of Fear dot com and learn more about Gavin and
Speaker 1: his company at g d b A dot com. For
Speaker 1: more info and what you've heard in this episode, and
Speaker 1: for link to Gavin's book, The Gift of Fear, check
Speaker 1: out our show notes. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and
Speaker 1: review go ask Alli and follow me on Instagram at
Speaker 1: the Real Ali Wentworth Now. If you'd like to ask
Speaker 1: me a question or suggest a guest or a topic
Speaker 1: to dig into, I would love to hear from you,
Speaker 1: and there's a bunch of ways you can do it.
Speaker 1: You can call or text me at three to three
Speaker 1: four six three six, or you can email a voice
Speaker 1: memo right from your phone to Go ask Alli Podcasts
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. And if you leave a question,
Speaker 1: you just might hear it. I'm go ask Alli. Go
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